Professional boxer Tyrone McKenna has said that the Belfast boxing community “jumped” at the chance to welcome a group of West Bank children to the city for a special fundraising event on Thursday.
The 35-year-old west Belfast boxer recently spent two-and-a-half weeks at the Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem.
During his trip, he helped children learn to box at the ACLAÍ Palestine gym, which was founded by Ainle Ó Caireallain, the brother of Kneecap member Móglaí Bap (Naoise Ó Caireallain).
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Speaking to The Irish News, Mr McKenna said that the experience was “eye-opening”.
He said that he plans to return to the camp following his upcoming fight in September PICTURE: COLM LENAGHAN
“I was over there and was training with these kids that don’t even have running water in their camps for the last ten months,” he said.
“There’s six thousand people there that have to share the one tap; there’s families getting trailed out at four in the morning, getting arrested.”
Having previously visited Palestine prior to October 2023, he added that there had been a “dramatic change” since the last time he was there.
“There’s no reason for there not to be water in that camp, it’s just that the IDF, the Israelis turned off the water. They can turn it off at the flick of a switch, the water and the electric,” he said.
“They’re treated like sub-humans out there – you see that first-hand when you go out there and it breaks your heart.”
The 35-year-old said that the local boxing community ‘jumped’ at the chance to host children from the West Bank at a special fundraising event PICTURE: COLM LENAGHAN
He said that he will be returning to the camp following his upcoming Windsor Park fight on September 13.
“I will be going back out after this fight for longer, maybe a month or two to help out even more,” he said.
“They’ve got a lot of family members in Gaza; they don’t know if they’re alive or how sick they are. They can’t phone to even ask – there’s a lot of stress in camp.
“The boxing gym, growing up for me, if I was in hard times, I always thought boxing was a brilliant place to let out the frustrations and forget about the outside world.
“I think that’s what I was trying to help the kids there [with] – just get in the gym, try and forget about the outside and let out your frustrations and have a bit of fun while you’re doing it.
Tyrone during his recent trip to Gaza. PICTURE: TYRONE MCKENNA / INSTAGRAM
He added that the “spirit and the resilience” that he witnessed in the children was “unbelievable”.
“Whatever they were going through in their day, they were still showing up to boxing every single day with a smile on their face,” he said.
On Thursday evening, a group of five Palestinian children from the El Barrio Boxing Gym in Ramallah take on a select Irish team in a special fundraising event at the Devenish in connection with St Paul’s Antrim ABC.
The group have visited Waterford and Dublin before making their way to Belfast.
“Belfast is very pro-Palestine and big supporters of Palestine, so just to give back to them and to give a bit of joy to kids that wouldn’t see much joy,” he said.
“They’re over in the West Bank seeing things that kids shouldn’t see.
“To come over here and be treated nice and go to the host houses that they’re staying in and just having normality for a couple of days or week, it’s a big experience for them and it’s something that Belfast boxers, as soon as they heard they could help out, they jumped at it.”