Israeli and Palestinian girls visit Northern Ireland to learn lesson about cross-community sport with Peace Players International
A group of Israeli and Palestinian girls has just spent a week exchanging lessons about the challenges of cross community sports in Belfast.
Bella Kovner from northern Israel, is managing director of Peace Players International in the Middle East, an international movement bringing children together from divided communities all across the world through sport. It is supported locally by former Irish and Lions rugby international Trevor Ringland.
This week Bella brought four Palestinian girls from East Jerusalem and three Israeli girls from West Jerusalem to NI for Belfast's four day annual Peace Players tournament at Stranmillis College.
The Middle Eastern girls, aged 12-18, play together year-round for the only mixed Arab-Jewish team in their Israeli national basketball league, which is mainly Jewish.
Peace Players decided to organise female only teams in Israel because for Palestinian girls this is often the only opportunity for sport, she said.
"We felt it was important to do this kind of exchange with Northern Ireland since the history and narrative are so similar to ours," Bella said.
Her girls are "overwhelmed" with their Northern Ireland experience and "loving it".
"They understand it. We will take more time to reflect on it all when we get home."
In Israel children have completely segregated education systems - Muslim, Jewish and Christian, she said.
"They only meet for the first time when they're in the army service or university and these are usually very negative encounters."
"When we are playing against other teams, our girls get harassed and bullied. Sometimes parents are involved. And the Palestinian parents get targeted by people in their own community asking, 'Why are your kids playing with Jews?'
"Sometimes we are even getting threats to our staff and coaches."
The mass terror attack by Hamas on Israel on 7 October 2023 which sparked years of devastating war left everyone very sceptical about encounters between Palestinians and Israelis, Bella said.
"Everything we built over the past 20 years, all over the country was broken. But then two weeks after 7 October, our kids started asking to come back. Peace Players is like their second family and they needed this family around them. We have more and more kids that want to join us, which gives us great hope for the future.
"Our curriculum teaches understanding each other, learning each other's culture, perspective, background and where we came from. We all have a right to exist and none of us are going anywhere."
Gareth Harper, Managing Director of Peace Players International Northern Ireland, said they have been sharing very similar stories about their journeys. When the organisation started in Northern Ireland some parents threatened court action against schools they wanted to work with, he said.
"So for us to be able to share that experience and how we have developed up until today are very important conversations. The girls coming from the Middle East get to see and hear that from their peers here and from our young leaders. It has been really powerful for them, but also for our kids in Northern Ireland too."
Peace Players Northern Ireland puts 1,600 young people through their programmes each year, working in 60 primary schools across Belfast. Their programme culminates with a four day tournament each summer involving football, rugby, gaelic, basketball and wiffleball.