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Palestinian Climbers Defy Wartime Obstacles to Scale West Bank Cliffs

The nascent Palestinian climbing community has adapted to new challenges after the Israel-Hamas war. Sonia LOGRE / AFP
The nascent Palestinian climbing community has adapted to new challenges after the Israel-Hamas war. Sonia LOGRE / AFP
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Palestinian Climbers Defy Wartime Obstacles to Scale West Bank Cliffs

The nascent Palestinian climbing community has adapted to new challenges after the Israel-Hamas war. Sonia LOGRE / AFP
The nascent Palestinian climbing community has adapted to new challenges after the Israel-Hamas war. Sonia LOGRE / AFP

As Palestinian climber Faris Abu Gosh encouraged his friend ascending a limestone cliff in the occupied West Bank, the war raging in Gaza momentarily slipped from his mind.
Scaling rock faces has offered solace since the fighting erupted, but he and his friends have also had to face mounting challenges in what was already not an easy place for their budding climbing community, AFP said.
Yet, they have simply adapted, finding detours around new Israeli checkpoints or ways to avoid the heightened risks of confrontations with soldiers or settlers living in the surrounding hills.
"For the last seven years I've been completely obsessed with climbing and developed my entire life around it", said Abu Gosh, a 22-year-old physiotherapy student.
On a recent Saturday, a dozen Palestinian and Italian climbers were geared up in Wadi al-Ghul, a West Bank river valley that turns lush and green with winter rain.
As much as Palestinian climbers enjoy this recently opened spot for its natural beauty, they also appreciate its location far from Israeli settlements, which are considered illegal under international law.
And when Israeli troops are in the area, "we feel safer when foreigners come climb with us," said Abu Gosh.
"Soldiers usually don't bother white people."
Increased military presence
At least 435 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7, according to Palestinian Authority data.
"In the first month, it was almost impossible to leave certain towns and villages, because the Israeli army closed roads," said Heba Shaheen, president of the Palestine Climbing Association.
"It was really hard, and it is still very hard," she added, describing a widespread feeling of insecurity in the West Bank.
Climbers have to travel on dirt roads and make long detours, Shaheen said, noting they might have to drive 90 minutes just because they cannot cross a 50-meter (160-foot) stretch of road that is only for settlers.
One of the climbers, Tariq Kaabna, told AFP an Israeli soldier had just that morning taken a water bottle from him and dumped its contents into Kaabna's backpack.
At the Ein Qiniya site, near Ramallah, "there has been an increase in settlers and soldiers going into the area," said Abu Gosh, who hails from the Qalandia refugee camp.
"Once the climbers were kicked out of the climbing site for military purposes. This stuff actually wasn't happening before," he added.
Ein Farah, a canyon filled by a river in winter time, has been closed to all climbers by Israeli park authorities since the beginning of the war.
Though located in the West Bank just 15 kilometers (9 miles) east of Jerusalem, the site was declared an Israeli nature reserve named Ein Prat, a practice that rights groups have labeled as a roundabout way of restricting Palestinian access to West Bank land.
'Nothing could help us forget'
The West Bank's rocky topography offers massive potential for establishing or "bolting" new routes, dozens of which have been opened over the past 15 years.
However, climbing's physicality brings the Palestinian sporting community further into the land struggle that has rocked the West Bank since Israel's 1967 occupation of the territory.
"When we were developing we would see or hear the military but we thought it would be safe," said Tim Bruns, a US climber who bolted some of the first West Bank routes in the mid-2010s with his friend Will Harris.
Bruns told AFP he was set to join a climbing trip to the West Bank in December with mountaineering star Alex Honnold, but it was canceled at the last minute over security and access concerns.
For Palestinian climbers like Shaheen and Abu Gosh, they have felt guilty at times for continuing climbing while the war rages in Gaza.
"Before the war, climbing was an escape. But after the war started there was nothing that could help us forget what is going on (in Gaza)," she told AFP.
Though the Palestinian climbing community is in its early days, Shaheen hopes they will one day get to compete in the Olympics.
The inclusion of the Palestine Climbing Association in the International Federation of Sport Climbing in February 2024 was one step in this direction.
"The ultimate goal is to sustain the climbing in Palestine by Palestinians," she said.

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Varieties

UK's Prince William and Son George Volunteer at Homelessness Charity

FILE PHOTO: Britain's Prince William, Prince of Wales and Prince George join Second World War veterans at a tea party in Buckingham Palace, central London, following the military procession to mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day, May 5, 2025. Jordan Pettitt/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Britain's Prince William, Prince of Wales and Prince George join Second World War veterans at a tea party in Buckingham Palace, central London, following the military procession to mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day, May 5, 2025. Jordan Pettitt/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
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UK's Prince William and Son George Volunteer at Homelessness Charity

FILE PHOTO: Britain's Prince William, Prince of Wales and Prince George join Second World War veterans at a tea party in Buckingham Palace, central London, following the military procession to mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day, May 5, 2025. Jordan Pettitt/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Britain's Prince William, Prince of Wales and Prince George join Second World War veterans at a tea party in Buckingham Palace, central London, following the military procession to mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day, May 5, 2025. Jordan Pettitt/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

Britain's Prince William took his oldest son, Prince George, to a homelessness charity in London where the pair helped make Christmas lunch for people in need, Kensington Palace said on Saturday.

The visit was particularly poignant for William, heir to the throne, because his late mother Princess Diana had taken him to the same charity when he was 11 years old, an experience which inspired him to set up a ⁠program aimed at ending homelessness.

During the trip to the charity's center, named The Passage, George signed the visitor's book on the same page previously signed by Diana, who was killed in a car crash in Paris in 1997 when William ⁠was 15 years old, Reuters reported.

Wearing aprons, George, 12, and his father worked in the kitchen, placing food in baking trays, while they talked and laughed with the center’s catering staff, before heading out to lay long tables with napkins and Christmas crackers.

"It was important to The Prince of Wales to share with Prince George the work of The Passage and to spend ⁠time volunteering alongside the team," a spokesperson for Kensington Palace said.

"They both greatly enjoyed meeting staff, volunteers and service users as well as learning more about the charity’s work."

As well as working to try to stop people becoming homeless, William also champions environmental causes and campaigns for more openness about mental health issues.

William, his wife Kate and their three children are expected to spend Christmas at King Charles' Sandringham estate in eastern England.

Varieties

Paraplegic Engineer Becomes the First Wheelchair User to Blast Off for Space

This image provided by Blue Origin, Michaela Benthaus poses after the Blue Origin's capsule landed on Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025 in West Texas. (Blue Origin via AP)
This image provided by Blue Origin, Michaela Benthaus poses after the Blue Origin's capsule landed on Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025 in West Texas. (Blue Origin via AP)
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Paraplegic Engineer Becomes the First Wheelchair User to Blast Off for Space

This image provided by Blue Origin, Michaela Benthaus poses after the Blue Origin's capsule landed on Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025 in West Texas. (Blue Origin via AP)
This image provided by Blue Origin, Michaela Benthaus poses after the Blue Origin's capsule landed on Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025 in West Texas. (Blue Origin via AP)

A paraplegic engineer from Germany blasted off on a dream-come-true rocket ride with five other passengers Saturday, leaving her wheelchair behind to float in space while beholding Earth from on high.

Severely injured in a mountain bike accident seven years ago, Michaela Benthaus became the first wheelchair user to launch to space, soaring from West Texas with Jeff Bezos’ company Blue Origin. She was accompanied by a retired SpaceX executive also born in Germany, Hans Koenigsmann, who helped organize and, along with Blue Origin, sponsored her trip. Their ticket prices were not divulged, The AP news reported.

The 10-minute space-skimming flight required only minor adjustments to accommodate Benthaus, according to the company. That’s because the autonomous New Shepard capsule was designed with accessibility in mind, “making it more accessible to a wider range of people than traditional spaceflight,” said Blue Origin’s Jake Mills, an engineer who trained the crew and assisted them on launch day.

Among Blue Origin’s previous space tourists: those with limited mobility and impaired sight or hearing, and a pair of 90-year-olds.

For Benthaus, Blue Origin added a patient transfer board so she could scoot between the capsule’s hatch and her seat. The recovery team also had a carpet to lay on the desert floor following touchdown, providing immediate access to her wheelchair, which she left behind at liftoff. She practiced in advance, with Koenigsmann taking part with the design and testing. An elevator was already in place at the launch pad to ascend the seven stories to the capsule perched atop the rocket.

Benthaus, 33, part of the European Space Agency’s graduate trainee program in the Netherlands, experienced snippets of weightlessness during a parabolic airplane flight out of Houston in 2022. Less than two years later, she took part in a two-week simulated space mission in Poland.

“I never really thought that going on a spaceflight would be a real option for me because even as like a super healthy person, it’s like so competitive, right?” she told The AP ahead of the flight.

Her accident dashed whatever hope she had. “There is like no history of people with disabilities flying to space," she said.

When Koenigsmann approached her last year about the possibility of flying on Blue Origin and experiencing more than three minutes of weightlessness on a space hop, Benthaus thought there might be a misunderstanding. But there wasn't, and she immediately signed on.

It’s a private mission for Benthaus with no involvement by ESA, which this year cleared reserve astronaut John McFall, an amputee, for a future flight to the International Space Station. The former British Paralympian lost his right leg in a motorcycle accident when he was a teenager.

An injured spinal cord means Benthaus can’t walk at all, unlike McFall who uses a prosthetic leg and could evacuate a space capsule in an emergency at touchdown by himself. Koenigsmann was designated before flight as her emergency helper; he also was tapped to help her out of the capsule and down the short flight of steps at flight’s end.

Benthaus was adamant about doing as much as she could by herself. Her goal is to make not only space accessible to the disabled, but to improve accessibility on Earth too.

While getting lots of positive feedback within “my space bubble,” she said outsiders aren't always as inclusive.

“I really hope it’s opening up for people like me, like I hope I’m only the start," she said.

Besides Koenigsmann, Benthaus shared the ride with business executives and investors, and a computer scientist. They raised Blue Origin’s list of space travelers to 86.

Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon, created Blue Origin in 2000 and launched on its first passenger spaceflight in 2021. The company has since delivered spacecraft to orbit from Cape Canaveral, Florida, using the bigger and more powerful New Glenn rocket, and is working to send landers to the moon.

Varieties

Everything about Christmas, and How it Has Evolved into a Global Holiday

People browse products at a Christmas market stall in downtown Madrid, Spain, 18 December 2025 (issued 20 December 2025). People continue to do last-minute shopping ahead of Christmas. EPA/SERGIO PEREZ
People browse products at a Christmas market stall in downtown Madrid, Spain, 18 December 2025 (issued 20 December 2025). People continue to do last-minute shopping ahead of Christmas. EPA/SERGIO PEREZ
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Everything about Christmas, and How it Has Evolved into a Global Holiday

People browse products at a Christmas market stall in downtown Madrid, Spain, 18 December 2025 (issued 20 December 2025). People continue to do last-minute shopping ahead of Christmas. EPA/SERGIO PEREZ
People browse products at a Christmas market stall in downtown Madrid, Spain, 18 December 2025 (issued 20 December 2025). People continue to do last-minute shopping ahead of Christmas. EPA/SERGIO PEREZ

Christmas is a Christian holiday that observes the birth of Jesus. But did you know that the earliest followers of Jesus did not annually commemorate his birth? Or that Santa Claus is inspired by the acts of kindness of a fourth-century Christian saint? And have you heard about the modern-day Japanese tradition of eating Kentucky Fried Chicken on Christmas?

Since the early 20th century, Christmas has evolved from a religious holiday to a hugely popular cultural holiday observed by Christian and secular people across the globe who gather with families, exchange gifts and cards and decorate Christmas trees.

Here’s a look at the history, beliefs and the evolution of Christmas according to the AP news:

Origins and early history of Christmas Early followers of Jesus did not annually commemorate his birth but instead focused on commemorating their belief in his resurrection at Easter.

The story of the birth of Jesus appears only in two of the four Gospels of the New Testament: Matthew and Luke. They provide different details, though both say Jesus was born in Bethlehem.

The exact day, month and even year of Jesus’s birth are unknown, said Christine Shepardson, a professor at the University of Tennessee who studies early Christianity.

The tradition of celebrating Jesus’ birth on Dec. 25, she said, only emerged in the fourth century.

“It’s hard to overemphasize how important the fourth century is for constructing Christianity as we experience it in our world today,” Shepardson said. It was then, under Emperor Constantine, that Christians began the practice of gathering at churches instead of meeting at homes.

Some theories say the date coincides with existing pagan winter solstice festivals, including the Roman celebration of Sol Invictus, or the “Unconquered Sun,” on Dec 25.

While most Christians celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25, some Eastern Orthodox traditions celebrate the holy day on Jan. 7. That’s because they follow the ancient Julian calendar, which runs 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar, used by Catholic and Protestant churches as well as by much of the secular world.
For centuries, especially during the Middle Ages, Christmas was associated with rowdy street celebrations of feasting and drinking, and for many Christians, it “was not in good standing as a holiday,” said Thomas Ruys Smith, a professor of American literature and culture at the University of East Anglia in England.

“Puritans,” he said, “were not fond of Christmas.”

But in the 19th century, he said, Christmas became “respectable” with “the domestic celebration that we understand today — one centered around the home, the family, children, gift-giving.”

The roots of modern-day Christmas can be traced back to Germany. In the late 19th century, there are accounts of Christmas trees and gift-giving that, according to Smith, later spread to Britain and America, helping to revitalize Christmas on both sides of the Atlantic.

Christmas became further popularized with the publication of “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens in 1843, and the writings of Washington Irving, who was a fan of St. Nicholas and helped popularize the celebration of Christmas in America.

The first Rockefeller Center Christmas tree was put up by workers in 1931 to raise spirits during the Great Depression. The tradition stuck as the first tree-lighting ceremony was held in 1933 and remains one of New York City’s most popular holiday attractions.

America’s secular Santa is inspired by a Christian saint St. Nicholas was a fourth-century Christian bishop from the Mediterranean port city of Myra (in modern-day Türkiye). His acts of generosity inspired the secular Santa Claus legend.

The legends surrounding jolly old St. Nicholas — celebrated annually on Dec. 6 — go way beyond delivering candy and toys to children. He is believed to have interceded on behalf of wrongly condemned prisoners and miraculously saved sailors from storms.

Devotion to St. Nicholas spread during the Middle Ages across Europe and he became a favorite subject for medieval artists and liturgical plays. He is the patron saint of sailors and children, as well as of Greece, Russia and New York.

Devotion to St. Nicholas seems to have faded after the 16th century Protestant Reformation, except in the Netherlands, where his legend remained as Sinterklaas. In the 17th century, Dutch Protestants who settled in New York brought the Sinterklaas tradition with them.

Eventually, St. Nicholas morphed into the secular Santa Claus.

It’s not just Santa who delivers the gifts In the UK, it’s Father Christmas; in Greece and Cyprus, St. Basil (who arrives on New Year’s Eve). In some parts of Italy, it’s St. Lucy (earlier in December) and in other Italian regions, Befana, a witch-like figure, who brings presents on the Epiphany on Jan. 6.

Instead of a friendly Santa Claus, children in Iceland enjoy favors from 13 mischievous troll brothers, called the Yule Lads. They come down from their mountain cave 13 days before Christmas, according to folklore.

One of the oldest traditions around Christmas is bringing greenery — holly, ivy or evergreen trees — into homes. But determining whether it’s a Christian tradition is harder. “For many people, the evergreen can symbolize Christ’s promise of eternal life and his return from death,” Smith said. “So, you can interpret that evergreen tradition within the Christian concept.”

The decorating of evergreen trees is a German custom that began in the 16th century, said Maria Kennedy, a professor at Rutgers University—New Brunswick’s  Department of American Studies. It was later popularized in England and America.

“Mistletoe, an evergreen shrub, was used in celebrations dating back to the ancient Druids — Celtic religious leaders — some 2,000 years ago,” Kennedy writes in The Surprising History of Christmas Traditions.

“Mistletoe represented immortality because it continued to grow in the darkest time of the year and bore white berries when everything else had died.”

Other traditions include Christmas services and Nativity scenes at homes and churches. More recently, Nativity scenes — when erected on public property in the US — have triggered legal battles over the question of the separation of church and state.

Christmas caroling, Kennedy writes, can also be traced back to European traditions, where people would go from home to home during the darkest time of the year to renew relationships within their communities and give wishes for good luck, health and wealth for the forthcoming year.

“They would recite poetry, sing and sometimes perform a skit. The idea was that these acts would bring about good fortune to influence a future harvest,” Kennedy writes.

Kentucky Fried Chicken for Christmas in Japan Among the many Christmas traditions that have been adopted and localized globally, there’s one that involves KFC.

In 1974, KFC launched a Christmas campaign where they began to sell fried chicken with a bottle of wine so it could be used for a Christmas party.

KFC says the idea for the campaign came from an employee who overheard a foreign customer at one of its Tokyo restaurants saying that since he couldn’t get turkey in Japan, he’d have to celebrate Christmas with Kentucky Fried Chicken.

“That really stuck,” Smith said. “And still today, you have to order your KFC months in advance to make sure that you’re going to get it at Christmas Day.”