The Bat-galim beach begins at the barrier of an army base and ends at an old building, formerly used by the British as a casino during the British Mandate for Palestine. I was drawn and intrigued by this seemingly bound tension between local and foreign, leisure and military, and in 2011 I set out to explore the area.

My frequent visits to this beach, which is mostly used by Russian and Ethiopian immigrants, prompted me to think about the difficulty in integrating into Israeli society. The beach, it seems, serves as a place of refuge, allowing them a yearning glance at distant continents.