Gearing up to take on Everest

Dubai: The Palestinian climber who was forced by illness to abandon his attempt to reach the summit of Everest this year is determined to go back and conquer the Himalayan peak.

Ali Bushnaq, 44, said he hopes to return to the north face of the mountain in 2008 or 2009 and become the first Palestinian to reach the top.

The father of three is keeping fit in the meantime with regular weekend climbing expeditions in the UAE.

As reported in Gulf News, Bushnaq, 44, a civil engineer who has lived in the UAE since 1969, was climbing Everest with two Israelis as part of the Everest Peace Project.

He was just days away from the summit when he had to turn back, although the Israelis, David Yifrah and Micha Yaniv, both made it to the summit.

"I would like to raise funds, get some sponsorship and go again two years from now. By then I will have fully recovered.

"In 2008 or 2009, I want to be back on the north face so I can climb it again. I want to do the same route because I am familiar with it. I know exactly how to achieve it and what the obstacles are - I don't want to try a new route," he said.

He added that family commitments, including a lack of enthusiasm for a repeat trip from his wife, would have to be dealt with before he went back to Everest.

Bushnaq was in Jordan earlier this month for a climbing trip with Yifrah and Yaniv in the dramatic landscape of Wadi Rum. This latest expedition, as with much of the Everest trip, was filmed by Lance Trumball, director of the Everest Peace Project.

Trumball is hoping to raise $80,000 (Dh293,600) to make a professional film about the peace project, which aims to bridge the divide between Arabs and Israelis.

"We have tens of hours of film on tape. It's now going to be edited and it will address different audiences - both those interested in climbing and those interested in the political issues," he said.

Bushnaq, a Jordanian passport holder whose father and grandfather were uprooted from their home near Haifa in Palestine in 1948, said his experiences of climbing with the Israelis had helped him gain a greater understanding of the tensions.

"I don't feel anymore that they are selfish people who want everything to themselves. They are simple people who want to survive like us. They have their own problems. They are not just there to make our lives miserable," he said.

Even after an angry political argument with the Israelis in Jordan - an argument that was caught on camera by Trumball - Bushnaq said he was happy to keep climbing with them and did not mind relying on the pair for his safety.