How Palestine's 'Speed Sisters' allowed girls to dream in the face of war

Kieran Jackson talks to the trailblazers who in the Noughties formed the Arab world's first all-female motor-racing team

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Pondering the start of a remarkable journey, Palestinian aid worker Maysoon Jayyusi remembers the moment vividly. "I had to drive fast to avoid getting hit," she says, matter-of-factly.

"Young people and soldiers fired teargas and threw stones at us.

"It was simple: I started driving fast to avoid getting caught." In 2007, Jayyusi, then aged 30, was making her daily commute from Ramallah to Jerusalem to undertake work for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). At the Qalandia checkpoint, run by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Jayyusi learned that, more often than not, stamping down on the accelerator was simply the safest route to a smooth passage through.

At the time, what she didn't know was executives in the Palestinian Motorsport and Motorcycle Federation had witnessed these quick getaways. Asked if she would be interested in heading up a women's team in the country's hurryscurry racing circuit, Jayyusi quickly accepted.

Soon after, support and funding came from the British Consulate in Jerusalem. Energetic and brave young drivers were scouted and recruited. And just like that, the Speed Sisters, the first all-female motor-racing team in the Arab world, were born.

"This was a team within a complex political reality," Jayyusi, says, on a day which is hoped to be of immense significance to the region. She speaks to me from Ramallah where, hours earlier, 250 Palestinian prisoners exited a Red Cross bus across the city amid joyous scenes, with Israeli hostages also released by Hamas in the first phase of Donald Trump's Gaza peace plan.