Gaza's elite enjoy riding at Faisal

Riding club on edge of Gaza City is booming, despite Israeli economic blockade, with horses imported through border tunnels

Harriet Sherwood, Gaza City
guardian.co.uk, Monday 6 September 2010 14.53 BST

Al-Faisal Riding ClubYoung Palestinians at Faisal riding club, on the edge of Gaza City. Photograph: Nehal Marahiel

On a Friday evening on the edge of Gaza City, the tables at Faisal are beginning to fill up.

A group of young women wearing brightly-patterned headscarves and high heels beneath their jilbabs order ice cream and fruit cocktails; elsewhere men are puffing on water pipes. But the main attraction is not the company, the menu, nor the refreshing evening breeze that blows off the nearby Mediterranean coast. People come to watch the horses.

Faisal is Gaza's only riding club, open for the past five years and, despite the Israeli blockade and its grim economic consequences, doing rather well. It started with a nucleus of Arabian horses bred in Gaza, but this has been recently supplemented with horses from Egypt and Syria imported through the tunnels dug beneath the border at the southern end of the Strip.

"We choose the horses over the internet, looking at video clips," said chief trainer Ahmed Abd Ali. "We also take advice from our trading partners in Egypt."

The horses are led through the bigger tunnels, but even then it is sometimes a tight fit, according to Abd Ali. Some reach the Gaza end with minor scratches, and some appear a little frightened by the journey. "But we have no choice, there is no other way to get them," he said. The animals are already trained but the trainers allow them a few weeks to recover from the tunnel ordeal before putting them to work.

The club has built up its membership to around 120, with more riders coming for ad hoc lessons. Its monthly fees of around 300 shekels (£52) are a considerable commitment, even for Gaza's elite families. But, says Abd Ali, "we are in a good position" with numbers increasing.

The riding club is part of a circuit frequented by affluent Gazans. Next door is Crazy Water Park, a swimming centre with chutes and slides. There is a burgeoning number of seafront cafes, and a new shopping mall opened in July.

The Israeli government says all this attests to the lack of an economic crisis in the territory. But in reality, access to these facilities is limited to a tiny stratum of the population.

The club's members comprise both adults and children, starting at the age of nine. It's unusual in Gaza to see teenage girls wearing jeans and uncovered hair, taking part in sporting activities, but Faisal's patrons come from the better-off, less conservative section of Gazan society. There have been no problems with the Hamas authorities over girls at the club, says Abd Ali.

Inas Sabbah, a confident 12-year-old who speaks excellent English with an American accent, has just finished her fourth riding lesson. "It's cool," she says, although admitting that a minority of her friends think it a strange hobby for a Muslim girl. She would like to be a professional showjumper.

Her father - who, she says, occasionally travels abroad as president of a Gazan university - has promised to buy her a horse of her own one day, though she is hazy about how the animal might get into Gaza.

Sobhe El Khouzndar, 16, places himself firmly within a strong Arab tradition of horsemanship. "I feel proud and powerful when I am riding a horse," he says with visible passion. "As a child, the only thing I saw in my eyes was horses."

In a place where recreational pursuits are hard to come by - Gaza's three cinemas shut down long ago and there are no theatres - the Faisal riding club was proud to host its first showjumping tournament in July. "It is an Arab honour to be able to ride a horse," says Abd Ali. "This is part of our culture."