If you ask the Palestinian players, they will tell you it is their greatest asset. They call it "summoud" - the Palestinian spirit. It's what they say keeps life ticking over in the war-torn regions of Gaza and the West Bank and it's an attribute they desperately want to show to the rest of the world at this month's Asian Cup. After all, it is what got them to Australia in the first place.

Sitting in their hotel lobby in Darling Harbour, the Palestinian national team looks like any other. They have the seemingly uniform haircuts of footballers, complete with the part line shaved into their scalps. They relax while glued to their mobile phones and lounge in training gear and sports slippers. Only, they have left far greater struggles at home than the average footballer.

They gather around that day's newspapers, trying to make sense of the stories that have been written about them in English. There are cheers, fist pumps and slaps on the back with the translation of each line. But it's not long before they leave the sports pages and turn to the world news section.  

Then the no-news-is-good-news-calm sets in, signalled by the loud sigh from wingback Hassam Abu Saleh. But much like home the peace is only temporary, ended in this case by the topic of what daily life can be like for an Arab-Israeli.

"We face a lot of discrimination as Israeli-Arabs, discrimination is part of every day life. There are a lot of checkpoints; it's really hard travelling," he says via a translator. "The distance from Bethlehem to Amman [in Jordan] takes only an hour in distance but with all the checkpoints in place, it can take a whole day."

In the regions that escaped the worst of the recent violence, life can be staccato. Hundreds of checkpoints operate though the region bringing mobility to a standstill. A  wall segregates people from their kin and travel is restricted.

Striker Ashraf Nu'man explains how strict border controls mean he has only ever been able to deliver apologies to his children instead of the lavish gifts purchased from Saudi Arabia, where he plays his club football.

"They take my passport, they ask a lot of questions, they check all my luggage." he says. "I will buy gifts for my family - my wife and my children - and I can't bring them in. I had to donate a lot of things because I can't give them to my family."

Jamal Mahmoud - the coach who guided Palestine through qualification last year to their inaugural Asian Cup - stepped down in September due to personal issues. He had to rebuild his house in Gaza after it had been blown up. It is one of many stories that explains why the players put such an emphasis on "summoud".

And it unites more than just those players who live in the occupied territories. Players from Sweden, Chile, Slovenia and Egypt joined the cause in the best way they know how. Mahmoud Eid, 21, turned his back on a chance to progress further through Sweden's youth national teams in favour of bringing hope and happiness to his people.

"I'm going to do this for my family, for my country," he says. "My family sends money and they do what they can for Palestine, but I want to do something else - to lift them up in the football world."

Slovenian-born Jaka Ihbeisheh reconnected with his long-lost father in Palestine and was convinced to ply his trade for his ancestral home after witnessing the daily struggles in the West Bank.

"We want to just make our people proud," Ihbeisheh says. "We want to carry the name of Palestine all over the world. Sportsmen are the best ambassadors, better than politicians."

Their decision was vindicated at a reception for the team in Guildford on Sunday night, hosted by the sectors of the Palestinian community in Australia. So loud were the select hundred representatives of the 25,000-strong Palestinian diaspora in Australia that they drowned out the "tablah" (goblet drum) that welcomed the players through the doors of the reception hall. Fans joined in the "dabke" with the players and coaches before lining up by the dozen for photographs with athletes whose names they didn't know. To them, it didn't seem to matter. What mattered was who they are and what they had already achieved by qualifying for the Asian Cup.

"Sport is a very important mechanism to bridge gaps between nations and to bring people together," said Izzat Abdulhadi, the head of the general delegation of Palestine to Australia.

Nu'man doesn't know if the souvenirs he can bring back from Australia will make it past the Jordanian border.  But he knows the story of "summoud" will come the other way, that the Palestinians, by qualifying for their first ever major international tournament, have a story that more than 800 million people will hear.

"We come from a background with so many struggles it's very important that we achieve even more," he said.