Tony Blair's niece to join Palestine Peace Cycle

The niece of former British Prime Minister Tony BlairTony Blair is to brave checkpoints, soldiers and blistering sun to cycle across the Middle East from October 9, say organisers of the Peace Cycle expedition.

Eight-year-old Alexandra Darby will be joined by her mother Lauren Booth and 15 other cyclists riding from Amman, Jordan, all the way to Jerusalem.

Her uncle Tony Blair, now Middle East Envoy for the Quartet, has so far made no comment on the planned trip.

The Peace Cycle is a British non-profit organisation that arranged two historic London to Jerusalem Bike Rides in 2004 and 2006, a ride from Amman to Jerusalem in 2008, and a ride to the European Parliament in Brussels in March 2009 where it handed a petition to MEPs signed by 20,000 EU citizens. It works in partnership with the Siraj Center for Holy Land Studies, a Palestinian organisation which organises peace encounters between people from different faiths and ethnicities.

Tony Blair’s niece has taken 2 weeks off school to stay with families on unrecognised land whose homes are regularly threatened with demolition by the Israeli military. She will visit refugee camps in Jordan, home to Palestinians forced from their land in 1948, and the group of cyclists will track the path of the eight-metre-high Separation Barrier as it snakes through the West Bank.

The fourteen-day cycle will take Alexandra through an historical and tragic landscape, finishing in Jerusalem, the epicentre of centuries-old conflicts.

This year's 2009 Peace Cycle will also raise funds for the Oyooni Mobile Health Clinic, which delivers specialised eye care to diabetes and glaucoma patients in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and is appealing for donations to support their work.