Ibrahim and Omar Ali were sitting in their home in Minnesota, scrolling on Instagram when they came across Kyrie Irving’s page. The Dallas Mavericks guard had posted a new profile picture back in April: a Palestinian child in the occupied West Bank, sitting while holding a book, fenced in by barbed wire. His path to school is impeded. The child is fearfully looking behind him, as three Israeli soldiers approach.Ibrahim and Omar intimately understood the photo. The feelings behind it. The fear. The uncertainty. The fences. The soldiers. The frustration in simply trying to relax. To read. To exist.The photo epitomized much of what their own upbringing was like in the West Bank before they moved to Minnesota in August 2024 to pursue their basketball dreams in America at the collegiate level and maybe even beyond. The brothers are entering rare territory, paving the way for the next generation of Palestinian hoopers. Ibrahim, 20, is blazing a trail as the only Palestinian-American born in the West Bank competing on a men’s college basketball roster at any level. He’s a 6-foot-6 sophomore at Gustavus Adolphus College (St. Peter, Minn.) who helped the team make the NCAA Division III Sweet 16 last season as a freshman.Omar, 17, who is 6 feet 9, has a chance to take the mantle even further. He’s a senior at DeLaSalle High (Minneapolis) who helped lead his team to the Class AAA state championship game. He is currently receiving interest from a handful of college programs, including several low-major Division I schools. Omar also has shown promise on the AAU circuit this summer, giving hope to the next generation of Palestinian-American players in the diaspora that competing at the next level is possible.How Kyrie Irving inspired two Palestinian basketball prospectsMirin Fader and Johnny Sweet“Me being one of the youngest kids who came out of Palestine, and went to the U.S., and got the chance to actually go somewhere with it,” Omar says, “I’m trying to take that chance to the highest level and then inspire everybody back home.”Life is much different now in Minnesota for the two brothers than it was during their upbringing in the West Bank, but many of those earlier difficult experiences helped instill a tenacity and relentlessness with which they are pursuing their hoop dreams.No matter how far they travel for tournaments during the weekends this summer, they are still reminded of their past. Of the realities of the occupation.“You live every day uncertain of what’s going to happen next,” Ibrahim says. “You’ve got to be cautious. You’ve got to be careful at all times. One second you could be in school. Ten minutes later … soldiers are raiding the school … bombing and closing the streets right outside our school.”They remember the checkpoints that threatened them and their family. They remember the Israeli-controlled water system often being shut off. They remember their basketball games being canceled because of violence on the roads. And they remember not knowing which home on their street soldiers would raid next.“This is the life we were given,” Ibrahim says.They are determined to take the sport as far as they can — farther than their father, Ala Ali, could have ever dreamed. Ala grew up under occupation, as well. He was 13 when the First Intifada, or Palestinian uprising against occupation, broke out in 1987 following the death of four Palestinians who were hit by an Israeli vehicle at the border between Israel and Gaza. Violence erupted on the streets, and his life became a series of closures: curfews, checkpoints, chaos.“I never had the chance to live a normal teenager life,” Ala says. “I used to love to play basketball myself. We never had the chance to do that because we would come study for three hours in school and run home before they closed the checkpoints or before the demonstrations or clashes started.”He is hoping his sons have a better life — and a chance to succeed, as they refuse to give up on their basketball dreams in the States.The brothers have been fans of Irving since they were kids, when they’d wake up at 4 a.m. to watch NBA games in their home in Ramallah. His posts made them feel like they had an ally in the NBA. “My first basketball shoe was Kyrie’s shoe,” Ibrahim says. Omar dreams of giving Irving his Palestinian National Team jersey one day.“I’ll be so happy,” says Omar, who has heard rumors of Irving attending prayer at local mosques when in Minnesota to play the Timberwolves and has long tried to spot him but hasn’t had luck yet. “It would be an honor.”They, too, want to unabashedly show their pride in Palestine as Irving does. The brothers are also proud to be American. They are American citizens, as was one of their great-grandfathers, who was naturalized. Their father spent many years in America, as well.“I wanted them to have the best of both worlds,” Ala says.At the beginning of the month, Omar left home in Minnesota to represent the U18 Palestinian National Basketball Team at the West Asia Basketball Association (WABA) qualifiers. Palestine lost a tough game to Iran, one of the top teams in the tournament, 97-87, but Omar shined. He had 12 points, six rebounds, two blocks, two steals and two assists. “This is huge for Palestine basketball. We’ve never come close to Iran, ever, at that age group,” says Saeed Al Naji, assistant coach for the U18 Palestinian team.