My Palestine experience

PICTURED ABOVE: Toby Doherty at the West Bank Wall in Bethlehem in front of a portrait of Shireen Abu Akleh, who was a prominent Palestinian-American journalist who was killed by an Israeli soldier while covering a raid on the Jenin Refugee Camp in the West Bank in May 2022.

While Israel launched its deadliest attack on one of Palestine’s West Bank refugee camps in decades, I was visiting another West Bank refugee camp learning how they care for their camps' most vulnerable.

I went out to volunteer for Go Palestine and write some stuff for their website. I stayed in Hebron, the West Bank’s largest city, for the length of my trip and got the opportunity to visit the Arroub and Jawwar refugee camps.

We visited the Arroub refugee camp twice. It sits between Hebron and Bethlehem. It is 0.24 square kilometres and has a registered population of 15,642 people. On both visits we had to leave in a hurry.

During the first visit, within minutes of entering the camp, a boy in his early teens living there showed me a serious scar on his forehead and told me how he was shot as a child. He said he has brain damage and that his brother was killed.

We also visited a women’s centre and a disabled centre where we learned about the work residents do, often facilitated by the Palestinian Authority, foreign aid and UNRWA.

Almost everyone in the camp was happy to chat and up for a laugh despite everything they're forced to endure. Their levels of English differed greatly but we had a translator.

After we left the women’s centre, Arroub's schools got out. The children swarmed us and were full of questions like ‘Messi or Ronaldo?’ ‘Barcelona or Real Madrid?’ ‘Do you like Israel?’ ‘Do you like Palestine?’ ‘Where are you from?’ ‘What is your name?’ (Some found 'Toby' hilarious) ‘What is your religion?’ and many more.

When I asked their name, it would almost always be an Arabic swear word and they would burst out laughing when I said, ‘It’s nice to meet you [Arabic swear word]’.

One of Shabab Al-Khalil's Ultras leads the club's fans in a chant

While the kids were quizzing us another group came through legging it, shouting something in Arabic. The ones we were with started pointing to our cameras and telling us to start recording.

It's well known to them that the Israeli military acts differently when they’re being recorded. There’s a famous video online of one soldier preparing to throw a stun grenade but when he realises he’s being recorded he starts hiding it and walking nonchalantly with all the subtlety of a Loony Toons character.

The children weren’t all that frightened while this was happening. Their energy levels rose and there was clearly some worry but they were still laughing and joking – though less so than before.

One child motioned to me to put my hand out so they could give me something. When I did, he dropped a stone in it and started pointing and miming a throwing movement. I instantly dropped it and very sternly told him ‘Don’t be at it’– as if this child with about 20 words of English knew what that meant.

Meanwhile that day Israel launched its attack on the Jenin refugee camp, which lasted over two days and saw at least 12 Palestinians killed including three children. Around 100 others were injured and more than 3,000 Palestinians were displaced from their homes.

One of Hebron club Shabab Al-Khalil's players taking a corner in a pre season friendly.

Hundreds of Israeli soldiers invaded the camp using helicopter gunships, rockets and armoured vehicles.

While the invasion was in its second day the city of Hebron and the whole West Bank went on strike in response to the attack.

A bakery was one of the few places that remained open. All I had to eat that day was four rolls of bread but I have never been so glad to see a scab in my life.

On our second visit to Arroub, while we were making our way out someone told us tear gas had been fired in another area of the camp. We continued to walk, a bit faster now, and began to smell it and feel it in our eyes just a little bit.

We had to stand at the entrance of the camp trying to flag down a taxi while more and more Israeli troops arrived.

We saw a boy, who looked around 15/16, who was detained, presumably for throwing stones.

Palestinian men began to gather at the entrance to the camp where the soldiers were coming in. It didn’t seem like it was to cause a confrontation but to provide witnesses to the scene. One man was there holding his baby.

When we finally got away we saw troops all along the road.

Photo of an incident at the Arroub refugee camp

Generally, people in the camps didn't have too much to say about Ireland when I mentioned that was where I was from. The leader of the centre for the disabled in Arroub told me he liked Clare Daly and Mick Wallace (not by name) speaking up for Palestine in the EU Parliament.

Outside of the camps, in the cities, people are all chat about Ireland’s anti-colonial struggle and its similarities to Palestine's.

However, the word for Ireland and Holland sounds very similar in Arabic so this often caused a bit of confusion. One night I was smoking shisha with some man in a café and we were talking about our respective countries. Around ten minutes in I realised he misunderstood me when we got onto football and he said that our national team plays in orange.

It’s hard to get a full picture of the place until you’re there and see all its little intricacies and contradictions. Due to Israel’s ongoing colonial campaign Palestinians deal with tragedies, crimes and injustices on the daily. This is what we see when we read news about Gaza and the West Bank and in turn it becomes all Palestine is in our minds.

Like anywhere the West Bank culture and subcultures. Boys play football in the street into the night while others play at videogame cafés. Girls walk around the city talking for hours. Some play instruments and some study hard.

Photo of the incident at the Arroub refugee camp

It is exciting and mundane, hospitable and hostile, religious and secular, conservative and progressive.

I visited Hebron University and got to speak to their Head Chef Teacher who learned his trade 20 years ago in the most unlikely of places… Portrush! I couldn’t believe it when he said it and he couldn’t believe he was talking to someone who knew where it was.

On my last day in Hebron there was a craft fair on in the City. This gave me a chance to properly speak to local women for the first time. The women I had spoken to beforehand were always in professional roles, whereas I had also spoken to men in the street when they approached me.

They were joyful, friendly and happy to negotiate their prices as I spent my remaining shekels.

One girl, around 14/15 was selling stickers of western pop culture figures and pro-palestinian slogans. I spotted one of Lana Del Rey and told her my girlfriend and I love her music. When I bought some other stuff from her stall she handed me the sticker and told me to give it to my girlfriend.

For the entirety of my trip the people of Hebron were incredibly kind - bar a few ripoff taxi drivers. I must have been stopped in the street more than 50 times so people could welcome me there.

Soldiers and Palestinian refugees begin to gather at the entrance of the Arroub refugee camp following a clash

In the days since I've left Israel's water company Mekorot has cut Hebron's water supply during a massive heatwave.

A Palestinian from Hebron told Quds Press he has to wait for days in queues until he gets his turn to get a tank load of water for his house.

Meanwhile he says he sees people at the illegal Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba 'play with water, irrigate their trees and home gardens.'