A decade of Lajee Celtic: The Palestinian club whose fans include Cantona

The football club founded in a West Bank refugee camp has built a global movement of solidarity.London, United Kingdom – Nearly 200 people packed into Edami, a small Lebanese bakery in east London, to celebrate a decade of Lajee Celtic, a grassroots sports club based in a Palestinian refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.What began as a football project has grown into an international symbol of solidarity.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4Migrants ‘are not to blame’: How the Ceuta crisis engulfed Spanish footballlist 2 of 4The return of Palestinian football: ‘We are a people who must live’list 3 of 4Palestinians gather for football amid Gaza’s ruinslist 4 of 4Ireland refuse handshake with Israel and don armbands in Nations League tieend of listIn London, the room was filled with Palestinian flags, the aroma of Edami’s freshly baked manousheh, and Lajee Celtic shirts – which have been worn by celebrities, including football icon Eric Cantona and the actor Hannah Einbinder.Martin, a Lajee Celtic organiser, travelled down from Glasgow for the celebration in September. He first visited Aida Camp, in the occupied West Bank, more than 10 years ago, a trip he described as life-changing.“I don’t think anyone would really have expected that the project would have been as successful as it’s been,” said Martin, who requested to be identified by his first name. “But Celtic is a unique football club with its foundation, its Irish identity, the diaspora community, its universal support and then the values, which tie so much of that together.”Celtic fans support the project that is thousands of miles away [Courtesy of Lajee Celtic]The relationship between Aida Camp, where Lajee is based, and Celtic supporters developed over years.Mohammed al-Azzeh, director of the Lajee Centre, which provides services to the youth of the camp, remembers how it all began.“We’d built up relationships with friends from Scotland and Ireland who had visited Palestine, and then in 2012, I travelled to Glasgow for the first time. We started to have conversations about creating a football academy,” he recalled.