Palestine converted Boeing plane restaurant: In a place with no airport, grounded plane is the only way to experience air travel

One of the last remaining Palestinian airports, Yasser Arafat International in the Gaza Strip, closed in 2000 during the Second Intifada, the Palestinian uprising against Israel.

Israel bombed its radar station and bulldozed the runway over the following two years.

The restaurant has been decorated with posters of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, and King Abdullah of Jordan, whom the brothers regard as national heroes.

Arrivals and departures signs are also being set up in the courtyard where the plane sits, on the outskirts of the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

"It took us 20 years to make this dream happen," Ata al-Sairafi said as he smoked a shisha pipe on the tarmac next to his so-called plane to nowhere. "People love the idea - it's an entertaining spot for a day out."

Israel controls entry and exit points in the West Bank which, according to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, "forces Palestinians to live in constant uncertainty, making it difficult to perform simple tasks and make plans".

Israel says the restrictions are essential for national security and that Palestinians can fly from Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv or from neighbouring Jordan if they have a permit.

Even so, it means that for some Palestinians, eating a meal on a disused plane in the middle of nowhere could be the closest they get to a holiday abroad.

The Oslo Accords, which were signed roughly around the time the brothers were purchasing their plane, are far from delivering the two-state solution that at the time had filled Palestinian leaders with optimism.

More recently, the signing of the Abraham Accords in 2020, which saw Israel normalise relations with Gulf neighbours Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, has left the Palestinians diplomatically isolated.

Many of them regard the decision to embrace Israel before resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a betrayal.

Palestinian leaders have condemned the accords as "a stab in the back of the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people".

Israel, on the other hand, hopes the accords will allow them to bypass the Palestinians in pursuit of new relationships with Arab neighbours.

Last year saw one of the worst escalations of violence between Israel and Palestinian factions in Gaza in seven years, unleashing a two-week conflict which claimed more than 260 lives. Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip killed at least 256 Palestinians, while Hamas rocket attacks on Israel killed 13 people.

The fighting erupted on May 10, when Hamas launched rockets at Jerusalem in retaliation for Israeli forces wounding hundreds of Palestinans in clashes at the al-Aqsa mosque.

The looming threat of evictions of Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in East Jerusalem had also been a key factor in the rising tensions.

During that same period, there was an explosion in violence between Arab and Jewish communities inside Israel itself, with mobs torching schools, cars and synagogues.

Reuven Rivlin, at that time the president of Israel, compared the situation to a "civil war," reflecting just how severely Arab-Israel relations had deteriorated.

During a preview of the new restaurant during the summer, "people brought their children to show them how travel works, because as Palestinians we are deprived of such things", Mr Sairafi said.

"As we don't have an airport in Palestine, people felt it was important to have a plane, even if it's not in an airport," he added. "It gives people enthusiasm and excitement about flying."

Mr Sairafi said that disruption caused by the Second Intifada, financial difficulties and, more recently, the pandemic had delayed the opening of the restaurant.

And it was no easy task getting the plane, which was purchased in the Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona, up to their home in Nablus. It had to be disassembled and then moved on trucks for a hundred miles up the mountainous terrain.

Some hurdles remain, even as the opening day approaches. The brothers are still working on the menu, which will likely offer up a mix of hummus, falafel, coffee and shisha pipes.

They are also undecided on allowing visitors to smoke shisha inside the plane, which has novelty value but risks turning it into a smokebox.

"That was the idea," Mr Sairafi says as he inspects the plane's interior. "But I think it might be too much."

The Telegraph, London

See also: The curious case of KLM's 12-hour flight to nowhere

See also: Airline adds an apocalyptic twist to its 'flights to nowhere'