Marc Hendel laced up his shoes in the city of Eilat. He was standing at the very bottom of Israel, and he had a long run ahead.

Mr. Hendel had decided to run the entire length of Israel. Israel is a long, skinny country with a point at the end. It measures 263 miles from north to south. At its skinniest point, it is only nine miles wide.

You know your country is small when one person can run the length of it in nine days, which is just what Mr. Hendel did in 2013. Nine days of running across Israel probably felt long to him. But that doesn’t mean Israel is big. In fact, it’s tiny. Did you know that the entire country is only a little bigger than New Jersey? And New Jersey is the fifth smallest state in America!

It might surprise you that such a tiny country has caused so much turmoil. And Israel isn’t just little. It’s young too. The State of Israel as we know it has only existed for 67 years! After Israel became a country, other nations started attacking it right away. But Israel fought back, and won. Israel stayed on some of the neighboring land, especially in a spot called the West Bank. Many nations think it’s against the law for Israelis to settle there.

Just like there are two sides to every story, there are (at least!) two sides to every war. The nearby countries didn’t like Israel’s growth one bit. After all, Israel was the skinny new kid on the block. And that skinny new kid was taking their land!

Will Israel go on growing? Israel has already left some of its settlements. But what will happen if West Bank settlements continue to grow? For one thing, Mr. Hendel might need some new shoes before his next run!