Reaction to the presence of rugby league at the recent United Nations’ Dignity for All festival, held in Beirut, has been hugely positive and deemed a great success by the organising United Nations Refugees and Works Agency, the host American University of Beirut and both the Palestinian and Middle East North Africa Rugby League organisations.

Although AUB won the exhibition match 28-10, the Palestinian XIII received tremendous support from fans and key officials alike. Busloads of relatives and friends, many of whom were wearing eye-catching red, black, white and green coloured t-shirts that had been produced especially for the day and waving the Palestinian flag, flooded the centre swelling the crowd to well over 2,000 an hour before kick-off.

Palestinian Rugby League founder Rabie El Masri, could hardly contain his pride after the emotional evening. “This match was very far away from the reality of two years ago; it was a dream for me,” he said. “Even more so for the Palestinian boys and girls. I went to the camps looking for players, I trained guys in all kinds of weather, we were laughing and happy playing rugby league even though some of them don’t have sports shoes. I did rugby league sessions in Nahr el Bared camp [largely destroyed in a 2008 conflict] and people were happy, the children were laughing.”