Sights After arriving in the center of Nablus, wander south past a pleasant, cheap fresh fruit market (next to Nablus circle) and into the crowded streets and passageways of the market, overflowing with Nablus merchants, Palestinian customers, and tea-sipping onlookers. Try a piece of the famous, extraordinarily rich knajfeh nablusia. Nablus churns out countless tray-fulls of this cheese concoction, which is topped with sweet orange flakes and honey (0.25kg NTS2.5). For the duration of the intifada, the market is open 9am-lpm. Although you’ll feel much more comfortable if you have a guide, stopping to chat and swap stories can often dissipate any awkwardness.

Throughout the market you’ll continue to see the smiling image of Dafer Masri, Nablus’s Palestinian mayor. A wreathed monument next to the municipality building marks the spot where he was slain in the winter of 1986. More than likely, his assassins were Palestinians who resented his alleged chumminess with Israeli leadership; the killing is remembered with great bitterness here.

To the east, 3km from the town center, lie two famous though unspectacular pilgrimage sights. Jacob’s Well (tel. (09) 37 51 23) is now enclosed within a subterranean Greek Orthodox shrine. The well is believed to date from the time when Jacob bought the surrounding land to pitch his tents (Genesis 33:18-19). (Open daily Sam-noon and 2-5pm.) A few hundred meters north of the well lies the Tomb of Joseph. According to the Book of Joshua, the bones of Joseph were carried out of Egypt and buried in Sh’khem (Joshua 24:32). The tomb was a Muslim shrine until three years ago, when it was taken over by Jewish authorities. Israeli soldiers now guard the unimpressive velvet-shrouded cenotaph and the adjacent yeshiva. (Open daily 6am-10pm; no shorts or bare shoulders permitted.) Shared taxis (NIS.70) run to both sites regularly from the center of town.