Spider Parkour’s love for their sport defies Israeli bombs as they find ways to show off their skills during the war.
In Rafah, a group of children cheered loudly as two young men made their way perilously through a mound of mud to a tent encampment housing people fleeing Israel’s war on Gaza.
Their fluid movements inspire passersby to stop and admire the Spiders Parkour group’s skills.
Their homes were destroyed during three months of Israeli bombing. Five members of their team have been killed, but these young survivors of the war are not intimidated.
They find resilience through parkour by transforming neighborhoods destroyed by Israeli bombing into arenas for their favorite sport.
“We have been practicing this sport for many years. We train in public places, on flat ground and on sand dunes,” Najem Ammar, a member, told Tel Aviv Tribune.
When war breaks out, Ammar and his friends turn to training in the ruins of bombed-out neighborhoods.
“It is a message to the world that our determination to live is stronger than ever and to show the world the extent of the destruction caused by Israeli bombs,” he said.
Finding a way through the destruction
Parkour is a sport in which participants move from one point to another using obstacles in their path to increase their efficiency, according to the World Freerunning and Parkour Federation. It takes its name from the French word “cours”, which means “the path through”.
Rafah’s intrepid athletes jump, climb, run, jump and cross the destruction caused by Israeli bombing.
Parkour has become popular in Gaza in recent decades and gained special symbolism when young athletes turned destruction into obstacle courses for their sport.
Spider Parkour, founded in 2011, is popular among the youth of the beleaguered strip. They use YouTube tutorials as their primary guides, developing and perfecting their parkour skills, which members say meet international standards.
Due to the Israeli siege of Gaza, the group’s members never had the opportunity to showcase their skills internationally.
Since the war, they have transformed the rubble of houses destroyed by bombs into free racing arenas.
Members wander the narrow streets of war-affected neighborhoods, and when they discover an environment that might offer them an opportunity to practice their skills, they rush there.
The walls with gaping holes left by the missiles provide an obstacle through which they can jump and land on the other side.
“It’s a way of telling the world that nothing can stop us or force us to give up our dream, our sport and our identity,” says Mohammed Fawzy sitting on top of a pile of rubble.
“It (parkour) also helps us release negative energy and serves to distract us from the bad things happening around us,” he adds.
Spider Parkour hopes that one day they will be able to travel and represent Palestine in international competitions.
They say that for them, this dream is inseparable from that of freedom from the occupation of Palestine.