‘Fighting for their lives’ Belfast boxer proud to link up with Palestinian kids in West Bank gym

‘The Mighty Celt’ has travelled to Palestine to coach boxing at a community gym

It’s 4am and after a 29-hour journey from West Belfast to the West Bank, Tyrone McKenna is trying to get some sleep.

The Mighty Celt has travelled to Palestine to coach boxing at ACLAÍ Palestine, a community gym set up by Ainle Ó Cairealláin, brother of Kneecap’s Móglaí Bap, in 2020.

But the sound of IDF vehicles and the removal of a family by Israeli soldiers from the home next door to where the welterweight boxer is staying wakes him up. It’s an all too familiar sound for the 6,000 people Aida camp is home to. There has been only one tap working in this refugee camp for the past few months. Not because there’s a water shortage, but because Israel decides when Palestinians can drink and wash.

They also decide who lives and dies and two teenage footballers were shot dead by soldiers minutes from the camp during McKenna’s time there. They were 16 and 17.

“As soon as I got there it was f***ing brutal,” McKenna says of his July visit to the camp. “You could see the conditions the kids are living in. There’s been no running water there for the last couple of months, you see the lines, the queues of kids in the morning lining up for the one water tap for 6,000 people to fill up their buckets for their families.

“The first night I was there, my next door neighbours at 4am were dragged out of the house and arrested by the IDF. There were two footballers, 17 and 16, they were shot five minutes from the house by the IDF and the ambulance trying to get through was blocked off by the soldiers and then they opened fire on the kids to make sure they were dead.”

Everyone in this camp has harrowing stories to tell. The person McKenna is staying with tells him how his friend was murdered by an Israeli settler.

“He was shot dead by a settler, a settler trying to take over his land. He argued back and he just whipped out a gun and killed him,” McKenna says. “The settler was arrested and let free two days later, they said they couldn’t determine whether the bullet was what killed the Palestinian.

“Then 12 members of the guy who was shot’s family were all arrested and they’re still in jail for no reason, but the settler who went and killed and opened fire, which is all on video, opened fire on everyone, is free to walk the streets. They’re getting away with murder and the innocent Palestinians are getting locked up for no reason, without even a charge.”

The atmosphere within the camp is understandably one of worry and concern, especially as a number of those within it have friends and family in Gaza — although a lot of them can’t make contact with people there.

“A lot of the men can’t even contact the families in Gaza because if you’re a young man, you’re seen phoning someone in Gaza, then you’re seen as Hamas, you’re seen as part of Hamas so they can’t even phone to see if their families are alive,” McKenna explains.

The day after the footballers were killed, children as young as seven were being taught what to do if one of their family members is shot.

“They’re being told how to treat wounds, what to do if their mummy or family members are shot, who to phone, what to do if the soldiers are throwing tear gas at them, like all that kind of s*** shouldn’t be happening for young kids like that,” adds McKenna. “But despite all the s*** they have faced in their young lives, the children here are still smiling.

“My heart breaks for them because they’re the nicest kids in the world, like honestly the nicest kids in the world. They come up straight away shaking hands, giving high fives, just wanting pictures and just being happy,” said the 24-6-1 boxer.

‘The Mighty Celt’ gets to work with them up close while volunteering at the gym within the Lajee Centre in the camp.

“They come in their thousands and they can feel safe and let their hair down and feel like normal kids. It’s an unbelievable place,” the 35-year-old explains.

“What they are going through in the street and to see them every day, like they would come with a smile on their face to the gym no matter what was happening in the outside world and they really enjoyed the boxing sessions and had a passion for boxing.”

McKenna will compete in his 32nd professional bout as a boxer on the Lewis Crocker v Paddy Donovan card at Windsor Park next month, but the struggle of the Palestinian people is another fight he has long been part of.

“I’ve been a pro-Palestine for a long, long time,” he says. “It’s not just been from October 7th. I grew up in a household that’s always supported Palestine, so, I’ve always felt strongly about it.

“I went over to Palestine, I think it was three and a half years ago, to visit with my dad and my brother, and I fell in love with the place. I fell in love with people, the food, the culture, everything about it.”

Although the apartheid and segregation was bad during McKenna’s first trip to Palestine, things have worsened significantly since the October 7 attacks by Hamas.

“The apartheid’s obvious when you’re over there,” he said. “There’s different licence plates for the Israelis, there’s different licence plate colours for the Palestinians. There’s two different separate roads for Palestinians and Israelis, so once they don’t want the Palestinians to leave the city, they just close the barriers.

“There’s checkpoints all around the place, so it’s really a struggle for Palestinians to get anywhere. They have to queue for hours to get through these checkpoints, so when you’re over it’s very obvious the apartheid and the division and how they’re being treated like second-class citizens.”

McKenna adds: “Even the IDF during the day they’ll sometimes come in just to intimidate people, walk in their 10s, 20s, 30 or 40 of them, walk the streets with their guns out just to intimidate the kids, intimidate the teens, the adults, whatever.”

The Lajee Center provides children with a safe place away from the carnage and teaches them life skills.

“The centre is unbelievable for kids. It’s a miracle of a place like it’s amazing that this place is kind of open,” says McKenna. “Kids can go and look and learn how to grow vegetables, grow fruit, to collect water, to make recycled paper, there’s a football team, there’s boxing, there’s a gym, all this is free for them. It’s a safe haven where they can go and just let out the frustrations and forget about the world for a couple of hours.”

You can donate to help with the running of the ACLAÍ Palestine gym here: https://donorbox.org/aclaipalestine