Qais Omar<\/p>\n
08 May 2026\u2022Update: 08 May 2026<\/p>\n
The 10th edition of the Palestine International Marathon kicked off Friday in the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, alongside a parallel race in the Gaza Strip, after a two-year hiatus due to Israel\u2019s war on Gaza.<\/p>\n
The full 42.195-kilometer marathon began at 6 am local time (0300GMT).<\/p>\n
Thousands of Palestinian and international runners gathered outside the Church of the Nativity in central Bethlehem, the starting point for the race.<\/p>\n
Marathon coordinator Itidal Abdul Ghani told Anadolu that this year\u2019s edition calls for “the unity of the homeland.”<\/p>\n
A separate 5-kilometer marathon was also held in central Gaza from Wadi Gaza Bridge northward, she said.<\/p>\n
The organizers also held a virtual marathon in several countries between April 17 and 21, with more than 5,000 participants from 88 countries.<\/p>\n
The number of participants exceeded 13,000, including 2,523 runners in Gaza and around 1,000 foreign participants from 75 countries, Ghani said.<\/p>\n
The marathon includes races of 42.195 kilometers, 21 kilometers, and 10 kilometers, in addition to a 5-kilometer family race.<\/p>\n
The event is organized by the Palestinian Higher Council for Youth and Sports, the Palestinian Olympic Committee, and the Bethlehem Municipality.<\/p>\n
The marathon\u2019s return this year comes amid ongoing Israeli ceasefire violations in Gaza and escalating violence in the occupied West Bank since October 2023.<\/p>\n
According to Palestinian figures, at least 1,155 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 11,750 injured in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, alongside about 22,000 arrests.<\/p>\n
In Gaza, more than 72,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 172,000 injured during Israel\u2019s genocide, according to Palestinian authorities.<\/p>\n
*Writing by Rania Abushamala in Istanbul<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Qais Omar 08 May 2026\u2022Update: 08 May 2026 The 10th edition of the Palestine International Marathon kicked off…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186979,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,77126],"class_list":["post-186978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-sitekeywords"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}