The scent of jasmine fills the senses, the narrow alleys and old buildings in al-Yasmineh neighborhood in the southwest of the West Bank’s old city of Nablus. The neighborhood is named after the sweetly scented jasmine flower that is widely spread there and is locally known as Little Damascus to emphasize the Levantine-style similarities and prevailing Mamluk and Ottoman architectures.

Nestled in one of the neighborhood’s corners is the well-known Breek herbal shop that dates back more than 400 years ago. Herbal products, seeds, spices and authentic Arabic coffee are sold at Breek. There is also an antiquities shop inside Breek displaying hundreds of antiquities such as ancient printing machines and phones, embroideries, and a variety of traditional Palestinian necklaces, bracelets and rings in this corner of al-Yasmineh that is so dear to visitors and tourists in the old city of Nablus.

Saleh Awad, head of the Department of Licenses and Inspections at the Directorate of Tourism and Antiquities in Nablus, told Al-Monitor, “Al-Yasmineh neighborhood is characterized by the diversity of civilizations that passed through the neighborhood, starting from the Roman to the Byzantine empires, the Crusades, to the Mamluk and Ottoman periods in the mid-17th and 18th centuries. The Ottoman and Mamluk architectural styles prevail in the neighborhood.”