User:Matar Gaza/Ahmed Matar

Ahmad Matar or Matar as he is usually called. Matar is a Palestinian from Gaza, he was born on (March 19, 1996 in Gaza). He moved to Sweden when he was 20 years old after he was invited to a Parkour competition in Helsingborg, then he stayed in Sweden.

Matar Parkour Journey
Matar discovered parkour at the age of nine, it was when he met two guys doing some somersaults in front of him at the place where he used to practice martial arts, (Mohammed AlJakhbir and Abdallah Inshasi) are the two people who inspired him to start his Parkour journey.

Since Matar was a child, he had the dream to travel, so he started making videos and sharing them on Facebook to show off his skills. people liked what he was doing and he got a lot of views on his videos, which made him so happy and motivated him to continue. he started thinking about participating in competitions and wondered how he could be in the competitions, so he started training more and more and posting more videos. Then many people from all over the world started inviting him and his friends to do shows outside of Gaza. Also the Arab show "Arabs Got Talent" invited him and his team Gaza Parkour to the show but they couldn't go because they found it very difficult to travel outside of Gaza at that time. The crossing between Gaza and Egypt is closed most of the year and it only opens 6 times a year for three days or less. the only way to travel is through the crossing to Egypt. he was invited to participate in the Red Bull Challenge in China and he got a visa to travel but he lost that chance because the crossing was not open during that time.

WFPF (World Freerunning Parkour Federation) tried to help him many times to travel to the US to join WFPF competition in 2016, but he also missed that chance because he has to go to Jerusalem to get the US visa. It was impossible to go there at that time, because he has to use the Erez crossing between Gaza and Israel, and it takes more than 40 days to get permission, and usually they refuse to give him the visa. Krap Gym in Italy invited him many times to be part of their events that they organize every summer and every winter. he applied to the Italian embassy three times for a visa to Italy, and three times they refused without reason.