A journey across the land
فلسطين
Palestine
From the Mediterranean shore, over a spine of ancient hills, down to the lowest valley on Earth - travel the length of the land by scrolling.
من شاطئ البحر المتوسط، عبر جبال البلاد القديمة، وصولاً إلى أخفض وادٍ على الأرض، اسحب الصفحة لتسافر في طول فلسطين.
Between the river and the sea الأرض
A narrow country of startling contrasts. In a single day you can stand on a fishing quay at dawn, walk terraced olive groves by noon, and reach a desert valley far below sea level by dusk.
Everything here is close together - and every hill carries a name older than memory.
بلاد ضيقة المساحة واسعة المعنى؛ فيها يلتقي الساحل بالجبال والوادي، وكل تلّ يحمل اسماً أقدم من الذاكرة.
The coast الساحل
Along the Mediterranean lie old harbours where stone walls meet the waves. Akka (Acre) guards a sea-gate that turned away armies; Haifa climbs Mount Carmel above the bay; and inland, Nazareth sits among the green Galilee hills, where the call to prayer still drifts over stone courtyards at dusk.
Yafa (Jaffa) - its citrus once perfumed ships across the sea, the famous Jaffa orange carrying the country's name to distant ports. Further along, Lydda and al-Ramla kept the old caravan roads, and Safad rose into the hills, a small city of mystics and narrow blue-doored lanes.
Many families who left these shores still keep the iron key to a house in Jaffa or Haifa - some only a memory now, others passed hand to hand for three generations, kept not because the lock still turns, but because the door is remembered.
على الساحل تقوم عكا وحيفا ويافا وغزة، مدنٌ عرفت الموج والمرافئ والبرتقال والبيوت التي بقيت مفاتيحها في الذاكرة واليد.
The highlands الجبال
A ridge of pale limestone runs down the country's heart, stitched with terraces and silver-leaved olives. Jenin opens onto wheat plains; Tulkarm sits where the hills meet the plain; Nablus, set between two mountains, is loved for its olive-oil soap and for knafeh, syrup-soaked and warm, sold from the same copper trays for generations.
Ramallah sits high where the air turns cool in summer, its cafés full of grandparents telling grandchildren the names of villages that no longer appear on any map but are never forgotten at the table.
في الجبال تمتد مصاطب الزيتون والحجر الكلسي؛ من جنين وطولكرم إلى نابلس ورام الله، تبقى أسماء القرى حاضرة في الكلام والخبز والقهوة.
Al-Quds القدس
The hill city, holy to three faiths, where every stone is layered with three thousand years of prayer. Within sight lie Bayt Lahm (Bethlehem) with its old church, and Al-Khalil (Hebron), city of glassblowers and shrines. To the east, Tabariya (Tiberias) rests on the shore of its lake, where fishermen still mend their nets at first light.
Jerusalem stone - golden at sunset - gives the whole region its colour, and to anyone born of this land, the sight of it from a distance is enough to bring tears before a single word is spoken.
القدس مدينة التلال والصلوات، يضيء حجرها عند الغروب، وبالقرب منها بيت لحم والخليل وطبريا، أسماءٌ منقوشة في القلب قبل الخريطة.
The valley الغور
East of the hills the land falls away into the great rift. Ariha (Jericho) shelters in the warmth below - among the oldest continuously inhabited towns on Earth, fed by a spring that has never stopped flowing.
Beyond it lies the Dead Sea - the lowest point on the planet's surface, over 400 metres below the ocean. Its water is so heavy with salt and minerals that a body floats on top of it without trying, and the shoreline glitters white with crystal where the water has dried.
شرق الجبال ينخفض الغور نحو أريحا والبحر الميت؛ أرض الينابيع والملح والضوء الأبيض عند الشاطئ.
The south الجنوب
Where the coast meets the desert stands Gaza - an ancient port that has watched traders, pilgrims and empires pass for thousands of years, its people known across the land for their resilience and their sea.
Along the Gaza shore, fishing boats once painted in bright blues and greens went out at dawn, and children played football on the sand at the water's edge as the sun went down over the Mediterranean.
Inland the hills give way to the open steppe of the Naqab, where Bir al-Sabe' (Beersheba) marks the gateway to wide horizons and Bedouin hospitality, tents pitched beneath skies bright with more stars than a city ever shows.
في الجنوب تلتقي غزة بالبحر، ويمتد النقب نحو بئر السبع وآفاقه الواسعة؛ بحرٌ وصحراء وناسٌ يحملون المكان في الصبر والضيافة.
What the land carries
The olive & the thread
The olive tree is the country's elder - some have stood for a thousand years, and the autumn harvest gathers whole families beneath the branches.
What the land grows, the people carry: the cross-stitch of tatreez embroidery, each village with its own pattern; the checkered keffiyeh; the circling steps of the dabke; za'atar and olive oil at every table.
الزيتون شيخ البلاد، والتطريز ذاكرة القرى؛ الكوفية والدبكة والزعتر وزيت الزيتون، أشياء صغيرة تحمل وطناً كاملاً.
From the sea to the river
One land, held in memory
Coast, highland and valley - a small country with deep roots, kept alive in its olive groves, its embroidered cloth, and the names its people never stop speaking, no matter how far from home they carry them.
من البحر إلى النهر، تبقى فلسطين في الزيتون والحجر والخيط والأسماء التي لا يتوقف أهلها عن قولها، مهما ابتعدوا.