Palestinian mountaineer is raising $10m for Gaza by climbing Mount Everest

“Palestinian mountaineer is raising $10m for Gaza by climbing Mount Everest Submitted by Yasmine El-Sabawi on Fri, 05/08/2026 - 18:43 Mostafa Salameh has made it to the top three times before, but this journey has a particular, more personal resonance British-Jordanian-Palestinian climber and motivational speaker Mostafa Salameh holds up a Palestinian flag in an undated photo taken in Iceland last year (Supplied) Off It's late on a Friday evening, at Mount Everest's base camp, 17,500 feet above sea level, when Mostafa Salameh speaks to Middle East Eye over the phone. "It's a clear sky tonight, after it's been snowing in the past week," he says, sounding upbeat from his tent. This is his sixth attempt to summit the world's highest peak, in the Himalayas, measuring some 29,000 feet. He has been successful on the last three consecutive trips, and he's raised more than $8m for charitable causes, including cancer research and the United Nations children's agency, Unicef. This trip, however, has a particular, more personal resonance. "For the children of Gaza, [to] make them believe in their dream. And to tell them, listen, I'm one of you. If I was able to do it this way, I think anybody can do it," Salameh said. The mission is called " Rising Dreams ", and Salameh is going up Everest with a videographer, a video editor, and five Nepali Sherpas to raise $10m for the UK-based al-Khair charity , which says it will ensure the entirety of the proceeds go towards children's medical, hygiene, and psychological support programmes in Gaza. At the time of MEE's conversation with Salameh, just over $5,300 had been raised. Climbing season started later than usual this year, and melting ice is creating dangerous conditions. From washing dishes to mountaineering Salameh never imagined he'd even consider a journey of this nature, let alone making a career out of being a mountaineer and motivational speaker. The 56-year-old is a British-Jordanian-Palestinian whose parents were expelled from Palestine in 1948 and 1976. He grew up in the al-Wehdat refugee camp in Jordan and, to some extent, in Kuwait, until an opportunity arose to take a cleaning job at the Jordanian ambassador's residence in London. A year into that job, he told MEE that he "ran away" and washed dishes at restaurants until he saved enough money to go to university in Scotland in the late 1990s and pursue his dream: becoming a hospitality manager at a high-end hotel. He succeeded, leading food and beverage teams across multiple venues in England and Scotland. Then, in 2004, Salameh - who had never tried his hand at any extreme sport - had a dream that changed his life. "I saw myself at the top of the world, making the Athan (Muslim call to prayer) and praying. I had no idea where this was." He used every connection he could muster to take that dream all the way to the royal court in Jordan, where King Abdullah sponsored his training and his first-ever attempt to conquer Everest in 2005. He didn't make it, so he tried again in 2007. Still, he was unsuccessful. Then in 2008, he stood at the top of Mount Everest, not knowing it was the beginning of a string of firsts that would see him go from the Seven Summits to the Explorers' Grand Slam - but not before being knighted by King Abdullah. Mostafa Salameh leads a fundraising climb in this undated photo supplied to MEE By 2016, he'd written a book entitled Dreams of a Refugee , and in 2022, Salameh received an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh. Now, lying in his tent more than halfway up Everest, Salameh tells MEE that his inspiration for this climb was the activists aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla, which set sail last year carrying donated medicine and critical supplies to try and break the siege on Gaza. A second attempt was made just last month. "I thought, you know, if these guys [are] going through the sea, maybe I'll go through the mountain." Israel's genocide in Gaza News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0

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