A PHOTOJOURNALIST from Whalley has published a book chronicling the conflict between Israel and Palestine.

Based on his travels around the West Bank, Garry Cook’s travelogue mixes the history of the bloody and long-running conflict with an eye-opening five-day trip.

Garry was caught up in a series of activism events which increasingly raised tensions with the Israeli army, culminating in an unexpected dinner date with a Palestine military general on the night Israel launched a series of devastating bombing raids across the region.

His subsequent story, Palestiniana, is a wry account of his time in the region, mixing farcical events with the serious reality of life in the area.

During his visit last November, he looked on as activists spray-painted anti-Israel slogans on the controversial partition wall, found himself facing a line of armed soldiers as they were taunted by an activist leader and visited one of the West Bank’s top tourist destinations - a zoo without animals.

Garry said: “My visit to the West Bank was a mixture of calamity and shock. The calamity was in the disorganisation of the trip, being taken to the wrong hotel and made to share an apartment with an ever-increasing number of strangers, then going on sightseeing tours on a wet, leaky bus and not seeing any sights.

“The shock was experiencing the living conditions many Palestinians have to endure, seeing how the huge wall has strangled communities. I also heard of how brutally many Palestinians have been treated at the hands of the Israeli army.

Destinations documented include Ramallah, Bil’in, Nablus, Qalqilya, Hebron and Bethlehem. The book also includes images from the West Bank and Jerusalem.

The book is available on Amazon and Kindle, with the Kindle version featuring full-colour photography.