Palestine

Ramallah — the administrative centre of the Palestinian Authority (the West Bank: 5,655km² of historic Mandate Palestine, population approximately 3 million under Palestinian Authority administration — occupied by Israel since 1967, with approximately 700,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in settlements declared illegal under international law by the International Court of Justice). Check all current advisories; the situation changes rapidly.

💡 The West Bank is administered by the Palestinian Authority under the Oslo Accords framework (1993–present), divided into Areas A (PA full control), B (shared) and C (Israeli military control, covering approximately 60% of the West Bank). Tourism in the Palestinian-administered cities (Ramallah, Bethlehem, Nablus, Jericho, Hebron) has historically been possible and is actively encouraged by the Palestinian Authority as an expression of Palestinian cultural presence.

Bethlehem — the most visited Palestinian city, accessible from Jerusalem via the Bethlehem checkpoint — with the Church of the Nativity (UNESCO World Heritage — built by Constantine in 339 CE over the grotto traditionally identified as the birthplace of Jesus, the oldest continuously used Christian church in the world, with 5th-century floor mosaics and the earliest known image of the Three Magi — the most important Christian pilgrimage site outside Jerusalem) and the Palestinian refugee camp of Dheisheh (one of the largest in the West Bank, inhabited since 1948).

💡 The Church of the Nativity (the oldest continuously used church in the world, built 339 CE — surviving because Persian invaders in 614 CE spared it when they saw the mosaic of the Three Magi wearing Persian dress — contains the Grotto of the Nativity below the main floor, with a silver 14-pointed star marking the traditional birthplace site, continuously venerated since the 2nd century CE).

Jericho — the world’s oldest continuously inhabited city, with evidence of habitation from approximately 9,000 BCE — with Tell es-Sultan (the archaeological mound with 23 occupation layers, containing the world’s oldest known stone tower, 8300 BCE — 2,000 years older than the Great Pyramid of Giza), the Umayyad Hisham’s Palace (8th century CE) and the extraordinary Dead Sea valley landscape at 258m below sea level.

💡 Tell es-Sultan (the Neolithic tower of Jericho, dated to approximately 8300 BCE — the world’s oldest known free-standing stone structure, 8.5m in diameter and 8.5m high, built 4,000 years before the first Egyptian pyramid — makes Jericho the oldest known walled settlement in human history. The biblical “walls of Jericho” that fell to Joshua are a memory of this same ancient fortification tradition, though the exact period of the Exodus narrative remains archaeologically contested.

Hebron (Al-Khalil — the largest Palestinian city in the West Bank — site of the Ibrahimi Mosque / Cave of Machpelah: the tomb of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, venerated by Jews, Christians and Muslims as the burial place of the patriarchs of the Abrahamic faiths — the most contested holy site after Jerusalem, divided between a mosque and a synagogue since 1994 — and the atmospheric Palestinian souk and traditional glassblowing workshops).

💡 The Cave of Machpelah (Abraham’s tomb — venerated by all three Abrahamic religions as the burial place of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah — has been contested religious space for 3,000 years. The current division of the building between a mosque and a synagogue (enforced since 1994 following the Cave of Machpelah massacre, in which Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein killed 29 Muslim worshippers at prayer) is managed by the Israeli military and remains highly sensitive.

Nablus (Shechem — northern West Bank — with the world’s oldest surviving Samaritan community (800+ people practicing a pre-Babylonian-exile form of Judaism), the finest knafeh in the Arab world (shredded pastry with white cheese and rose-water syrup, made here for centuries), and the nabulsi soap (pure olive oil soap with a 2,000-year history, the ancestor of all European hard soaps, still made in the Nablus old city).

💡 Nablus olive oil soap (made from pure Palestinian olive oil and lye — produced in Nablus since at least the 2nd century CE, exported across the Ottoman Empire and Europe, the direct ancestor of Marseille soap, Castile soap and all European hard soaps — is still made in traditional Nablus soap factories using a cold-process method unchanged for centuries, available at the Nablus souk for US$3–8 per bar).

The Dead Sea coast (430m below sea level, the lowest exposed land surface on earth — the extraordinary experience of floating effortlessly in 34% salinity water, 8x saltier than ocean water — accessible from Jericho, with the Dead Sea mineral mud, the spectacular desert cliffs of Jordan visible across the water and the sunset landscape that has attracted visitors since the Roman period — one of the most extraordinary and accessible natural wonders in the Middle East).

💡 The Dead Sea is shrinking at approximately 1m per year due to the diversion of Jordan River water for Israeli, Jordanian and Syrian agriculture, reducing the lake to approximately 25% of its 1930 surface area. If current rates continue, the lake could disappear by approximately 2050 — making a visit while it exists both a remarkable natural experience and an observation of one of the world’s most visible climate and resource-management crises.

Ramallah’s dense cultural scene (the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre, the Palestinian Museum, the Ramallah film festival, the cafes and restaurants of Al-Masyoun — representing the Palestinian cultural determination to maintain intellectual and artistic life — and the Palestinian food markets with za’atar, sumac, freekeh and the finest olive oil in the Middle East) before departing via Ben Gurion Airport (TLV) or the Allenby Bridge to Jordan.

💡 Palestinian cuisine (musakhan — roasted chicken with caramelised onions and sumac on flatbread; maqluba — upside-down rice with lamb; knafeh — the finest cheese pastry in the Arab world; za’atar and olive oil on flatbread for breakfast — is among the most refined in the Middle East, the product of a culinary culture rooted in the fertile land and Mediterranean trade connections of the Levant, now carried and celebrated worldwide by the Palestinian diaspora.