'Everything looks so small from here.' Everest
Photo: AP
Israeli plants Palestinian flag on Mt. Everest
2 Israelis reach tallest point in the world as part of ‘Everest Climb for Peace’ expedition; one of them plants Israeli and Palestinian flags on summit as gesture to fellow Palestinian mountain climber who collapsed on way to top
Israeli mountain climber Dudu Yifrah of the “Everest Climb for Peace” expedition conquered the mountain from its Tibetan side at exactly 6:51 a.m. local time last Thursday after a grueling final climb of seven hours in -45 degrees weather.
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Micha Yaniv, the second Israeli on the team, arrived two hours later.
Upon reaching the summit, Yifrah, a 32-year-old farmer from Kfar Shamai, proceeded to plant Israeli and Palestinian flags, thus keeping his promise to fellow mountain climber Ali Bushnaq, a Palestinian water engineer who currently resides in Abu Dhabi, who collapsed on the way to the top and was forced to wait for the others at 7000 meters (23,000 feet).
Bushnaq broke into tears when he heard of Yifrah’s gesture.
“Now he is my brother,” he said.
Yaniv, a father of two from Beit Zayit, described each step along the final hundreds of meters as “an eternity,” adding that the view from the top was “amazing.”
“Everything looks so small from here,” he told Yedioth Ahronoth from the summit.
