The first Miss Palestine will be held on December 26 in the West Bank, the beauty pageant organizers said on Monday.

There will be 58 young women participating in the region's first pageant, including 26 Arab-Israelis and 32 beauties from the West Bank. There are no contestants from the isolated Gaza Strip.

The goal of the contest is to change the misconceptions of Palestinians as a people as opposed to the political understanding of the region.

"We can live just like everyone else in the world," the executive director of Moda Trip, which is organizing the pageant, Salwa Yusef, said at a press conference.

The winner of the Miss Palestine pageant, who will be chosen by a jury that includes representatives from the Information Ministry and the Culture Ministry, will receive a new car, a 10-day trip to Turkey, and $2,700 in cash.

The only difference in the beauty pageant is that the Palestinians will not participate in a swimsuit contest because "it was difficult to persuade them to go on stage looking like that," Yusef said.

GAZA, December 7 (RIA Novosti)