{"id":187385,"date":"2026-05-08T18:12:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T18:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/187385\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T18:12:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T18:12:16","slug":"palestine-marathon-kicks-off-after-2-year-pause-due-to-gaza-war-middle-east-monitor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/187385\/","title":{"rendered":"Palestine marathon kicks off after 2-year pause due to Gaza war \u2013 Middle East Monitor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>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,\u00a0Anadolu Agency reports.<\/p>\n<p>The full 42.195-kilometer marathon began at 6 am local time (0300GMT).<\/p>\n<p>Thousands of Palestinian and international runners gathered outside the Church of the Nativity in central Bethlehem, the starting point for the race.<\/p>\n<p>Marathon coordinator Itidal Abdul Ghani told Anadolu that this year\u2019s edition calls for \u201cthe unity of the homeland.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A separate 5-kilometer marathon was also held in central Gaza from Wadi Gaza Bridge northward, she said.<\/p>\n<p>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<p style=\"text-align: center;\">READ:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.middleeastmonitor.com\/20260508-hamas-urges-us-to-stop-israeli-attacks-on-gaza-following-deadly-strikes\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Hamas urges US to stop Israeli attacks on Gaza following deadly strikes<\/a><\/p>\n<p>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<p>The marathon includes races of 42.195 kilometers, 21 kilometers, and 10 kilometers, in addition to a 5-kilometer family race.<\/p>\n<p>The event is organized by the Palestinian Higher Council for Youth and Sports, the Palestinian Olympic Committee, and the Bethlehem Municipality.<\/p>\n<p>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<p>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<p>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<p style=\"text-align: center;\">READ:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.middleeastmonitor.com\/20260506-israel-to-spend-730m-on-propaganda-as-global-image-collapses-over-gaza-genocide\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Israel to spend $730m on propaganda as global image collapses over Gaza genocide<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 10th edition of the Palestine International Marathon kicked off Friday in the occupied West Bank city of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":["post-187385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187385","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=187385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}