A substitute for the trip for a private airport people. It is the concept of the tourist gîte of Minwer Harah, located in the middle of the arid hills of the north of the West Bank, which built its own aircraft -shaped vacation spot with its hands.
“Many children want to come,” assured AFP with enthusiasm the 27 -year -old Palestinian. “And that’s the idea: since we have no planes or airports, people come here instead. »»
From the terrace of his concrete plane, whose plans he himself drew, we see the separation wall erected around a large part of the West Bank, a territory occupied since 1967 by Israel.
The parental room is in the “cockpit”, that of the children at the rear of the device and a third was fitted into the fuselage. The entire gîte, swimming pool included, is praised between 250 and 500 euros per night, an inaccessible price for many Palestinians.
“I completely left the policy aside”
“I wanted to offer something unique and new in the region and in Palestine,” says Minwer Harah, whose project was greeted at the start with a certain skepticism. “Everyone said it would be impossible to build,” he explains. But thanks to God, nothing is impossible when we really give ourselves the means. »»
His white and red plane, who embarked on his first passengers a month ago, is already talked about in the region, both on social networks and on local television channels.
The aircraft was baptized “Shalleh Tayyara”, a “chalet plane” translitation. Associated with the mountain in Europe, the word chalet designates the holiday or seaside houses at the rising homes.
Minwer Haras has a time planned to call her the “Palestine Queen” and paint a Palestinian flag on the concrete cabin, but he has given up, as a precaution. “I just made it look like a plane,” he said. “I completely left the policy aside because of the difficult times that our people are going through. We lose things permanently, our land, our rights, our lives … “
Soon a boat?
His city of Qaffin is located in zone C of the West Bank, mostly rural and desert, where the Israeli authorities regularly demolish the illegally built dwellings according to them.
No airport currently serves the Palestinian territories, but this has not always been the case. The West Bank had one in East Jerusalem and Gaza near the city of Rafah. The latter was destroyed by Israeli bombings during the second Intifada, a Palestinian uprising in the early 2000s, and that of East Jerusalem closed at the same time.
With her “chalet plane”, Minwer Harash offers an escape from the Palestinians nailed to the ground, and an invitation to follow his dreams despite the pitfalls and threats. “I encourage all those who have land to do something about it, to take advantage of them with creativity and ambition,” he said, surrounded by his two brothers, who helped him build his funny gîte.
The young man already has another project in mind: a “chalet boat”. Because unlike the planes that pass over their heads, many are in its corner of the West Bank, yet so close to the sea, never saw a boat in real life.
