Warm welcome for William in West Bank refugee camp visit

The Duke of Cambridge was clapped and cheered by Palestinians as he made his first visit to a refugee camp to learn about the lives of Arabs on the West Bank.

After meeting Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, he travelled a few miles away to the streets of Jalazone camp to visit a school and health clinic.

The camp first opened in the wake of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war but today the tents have given way to concrete buildings built along rough-hewn streets and pavements.

It is home to around 15,000 residents where unemployment is high and violent clashes between Palestinians and a neighbouring Israeli settlement and its forces are a regular occurrence.

Dozens of young men had gathered outside the medical centre and lined the street waiting for the duke to leave and held up smartphones to capture his first visit to the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

When he emerged they clapped and cheered the royal who walked around 50 metres along the street's rough surface looking around at the shops and homes.

Inside the medical centre William had shown off his maternal instincts when he met a group of Palestinian refugee mothers having their young babies vaccinated.

With his third child Prince Louis around the same age as the babies being cradled by their mothers, the second in line to the throne could not help cooing over one-month-old Naifa as she was given her jabs.

"So tiny to have injections" the royal father said as the doctor performed the procedure and the infant began to cry, adding: "Is it always in the legs?"

Her mother Suhair Moussa was questioned by William, through an interpreter, and he looked surprised when he asked if it was her first child and she replied it was her fifth.

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