Sport is an integral element of Palestinian culture. It has always played a role in enriching culture and in highlighting Palestinian national identity in addition to its great value in nurturing succeeding generations and instilling in them the ethic of generosity, voluntary work, self-denial, moral conduct, and love for the homeland. It is no exaggeration to say that no other activity (except for the Scout movement) has helped as much to deepen ties of fraternity among the sons and daughters of Palestine and to draw them closer to one another, ever since the twenties of the last century and until today. What distinguishes Palestinian sports is their diasporic character, their flexibility and their diffusion in all aspects of life: economic, cultural, political, social and so forth. The various historic circumstances experienced by our people reflected themselves on the development of the Palestinian sports movement and at the same time highlighted sports as a “soft power” which played a positive role in Palestinian political history.
An historical sketch
Of note is the fact that sports is not a new phenomenon in Palestine in general and Gaza in particular, but began to emerge during the twenties of the last century. Here for example is a report published in the newspaper Filastin about a football match in May 1927 between the Orthodox Club in Jaffa and the Sports Club of Gaza, this last being one of the earliest sports clubs founded in Palestine:
“What recently took place in Gaza was a salient demonstration of this [sports] renaissance. Their national spirit and their fraternity were obvious during and after the match.”[1]
In 1934 was founded the Gaza Sports Club, to be followed by other clubs in Gaza and Khan Yunis in the forties. In the fifties, UNRWA opened service centers in Jabaliya, Rafah, Khan Yunis, al-Shati’, Nusayrat, Burayj and Maghazi each of which formed their own teams and took part in local and Arab championships. These clubs played a major role in the development of sport in the Gaza Strip where, before October 7, 2023, there were about 58 clubs, its football teams belonging to the Premier, First, Second and Third leagues.[2] It is no exaggeration to state that sports in the Gaza Strip was quite distinct from other regions of the Palestinian diaspora. We should note that after the Nakba of 1948, the locus of the Palestinian sports movement shifted from Jaffa to the Gaza Strip which, under Egyptian administration, witnessed notable development in many fields, including sports, which latter maintained their Palestinian identity. In 1962, the Palestinian Sports Union was founded anew–The Football Committee in Gaza---with its headquarters in the Gaza Sports Club. In that period, sports activists like Ilyas Manneh, Zaki Khayyal, Subhi Farah, and others who had been active in the sports movement of the thirties and forties of last century, strove to form sports unions for diverse kinds of sports played at that time. In that same period, attempts were made to form a Palestinian Olympic Committee which sent a request to the International Olympic Committee to join it, attaching all the required documents.[3]
It is well known that membership in the IOC requires the party applying for it to have at least five sports federations that are members of international sports federations. Regrettably, most international federations turned down the requests for membership submitted by Palestinian federations, which included the Palestinian Olympic Committee and the Palestinian Football union (with the exception of table tennis and basketball which were recognized in 1964, and field events in 1965) alleging, after consultation with the UN, that there was no such state as Palestine and that the legal status of the Gaza Strip was that it was under Egyptian administration and not an independent state.[4]
The participation of Palestine in the First Arab Games in Alexandria in 1953 and the Third in Morocco in 1961 was a true indication of how far Palestinian sports had advanced in that era. On the international scene, the first participation of Palestine took place in 1966 in Phnom Penh at the Friendship Games, also called GANEFO (Games of the New Emerging Forces). The Palestinian contingent was led by a prominent Palestinian sports personality, Zaki Khayyal, with Zuhayr Dabbagh and Ilyas Manneh from Gaza as officials. The team was made up of Palestinians from within Palestine (Gaza Strip) as well as from the diaspora (Egypt, Syria and Lebanon).[5]
At the end of the seventies, a federation of clubs was founded in Gaza in close cooperation with other clubs in the West Bank, and the two sides met in football matches, Following the signing of the Oslo Accords the center of gravity for sports was in Gaza, now that Palestinian sports belonged to “state” institutions that regulated their activities, guided the work of subsidiary unions and oversaw relations with international sports federations. So Palestinian sport kept developing inspite of the obstacles placed in its path by the Israeli occupation such as arresting sportsmen, forbidding or restricting their travel and up to the siege imposed by Israel on Gaza in 2007. This, together with the severing of Palestine itself, were the two most negative factors impeding the development of sports in the Gaza Strip.[6]
The genocidal war and the destruction of the sports infrastructure
Genocide is not confined to killing, massacring, torture and creating famine but also includes the obliteration of history and identity and the extirpation of an entire cultural heritage of which Palestinian sports are a part, for they too constitute a cultural tradition a century old. It is also patently clear that Palestinian sports have been and still represnt something of a nightmare for Israel from the forties and until today because they carry aloft the name of Palestine, its flag, and its people. Our enemy well recognizes the importance of sports and regards them as a political and ideological activity rather than as mere games, and well knows what sports entail by way of nationalist, ideological, moral, educational, health and other potentialities.
The effects of the destruction wreaked by Zionist terrorism on the Gaza Strip are no different from those of the 1948 Nakba which also encompassed the destruction of sports facilities, of sportsmen, trainers, prominent sports figures, and sports journalists. As is well known, the occupation targeted these facilities and sportsmen during the siege of Gaza, alleging that rockets were being fired from these facilities. Reports indicate the destruction of some 50 sports facilities and the martyrdom of more than 410 sports people. Statistics reveal that more than 70% of all sports facilities in Gaza have been obliterated, with 90% in the southern Strip and of course the total cessation of all sports activity.[7]
Unfortunately, and due to the unimaginable horrors unfolding in the Gaza Strip, no accurate figures exist regarding the extent of the damage done to sports facilities but some estimates have been obtained from colleagues in the sports industry, despite the problems with the internet and of media of communication with the outside world and their rarity, and also from the Higher Council of Youth and Sports and the Palestinian Football Federation and some news agencies.
The Martyrs
Since the start of the war on October 7 last, more than 410 sports figures have suffered martyrdom, most of them footballers and members of scout movements. In its latest announcement the Palestinian Football Federation, alluding to martyred sportspersons, stated that, of that number, 79 were children, the occupation having targeted them in the playing fields or in places of refuge.[8] This was documented in a video shown on Al-Jazeera on June 10, last, when the occupation forces shelled a group of refugees as they played football in the courtyard of al-`Awda School in the `Absan al-Kabira neighborhood.
Tens of Gazan clubs had already announced the death of its cadres, players, trainers and journalists. Expressions of sympathy also came from other Arab sports clubs such as the Jordan Wahadat club which announced the martyrdom of Muhammad Barakat, who played for the Palestinian al-Ahli club, and singled out for special grieving the martyr Hani al-Musaddir, former player and assistant trainer of the Palestinian Olympic team, martyred last June.
As regards the martyrdom or torture of sportspeople, there exist hundreds of examples of the brutality of the occupation forces. Such was the case with the execution of Furayj al-Hallaq, a footballer with a long career who was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. He was shot in cold blood by the Israeli army in front of the Al-Shifa Hospital, leaving him to bleed to death. Also martyred was the female Karate champion and member of the national Palestine team Nagham Abu Samra when her house in the Nusayrat camp was bombed. She was struck by shrapnel and lost consciousness. Martyred in Gaza too, due to the barbaric Israeli siege and the destruction of the health system, was the long-distance runner Majid Abu Marahil, the first Palestinian athlete to compete in the Olympic Games in 1996.
Before he was martyred, Muhammad Barakat, a former star player in the Palestinian football team, recorded his last will on video and this was published on social media as the city of Khan Yunis was witnessing violent battles and ceaseless air raids. In that video he stated: “Mother and father, I ask for your blessings. I love you dearly. You are so precious to me. I leave you to God’s mercy…For these could be my last words and pictures. We are in the midst of a terrible situation, but nothing happens in God’s dominion except what He wills.” He went on to recite some verses from the Qur’an.[9]
The clubs
Estimates indicate the total destruction of 50 clubs through either air raids or shelling or ground forces entering various areas of the Gaza Strip. In the Gaza Governorate, 12 club centers were levelled to the ground, leaving no trace behind, as was the fate of 7 other sports clubs in northern Gaza whose sites were wiped out and bulldozed. In the central region, 5 clubs were subjected to savage and direct shelling while Israeli bulldozers wiped out 6 club facilities in Khan Yunis during the ground invasion of that governorate.[10]
The Gaza Sports Club, doyen of clubs in the Gaza Strip and founded in 1934, was totally demolished together with most of its facilities which included the football field, tennis courts, and the multi-purpose covered gymnasium. Also totally destroyed by shelling was the headquarters of the Friends Equestrian Club and the Jabaliya Services Club. Paying a terrible price during this ongoing genocidal war was also the Friendship Sports Club of Gaza City whose main playing field was totally destroyed by the Israelis including its indoor halls and headquarters and 20 club members were martyred while the Shuja`iyya Union Club lost its headquarters in an Israeli shelling and 15 of its members were martyred.[11]
Playing fields
The Higher Council of Youth and Sports stated that the principal playing fields destroyed in Gaza and the north were the Palestine, Yarmuk, Bayt Hanun Municipal, Bayt Lahiya and Gaza Sports Club fields. Israeli war planes also destroyed the UNDP playing field in Rafah. The sports sector also suffered the destruction of the Khan Yunis Municipal field and Sports City, in addition to the destruction of the Nusayrat Municipal playing field and the baseball and softball fields in the Shati’ refugee camp. The Rafah Municipal field was turned into a field hospital and the headquarters of the Rafah Services Club was made a center for aid distribution to the evacuees[12].
The sports journalist Nelly al-Masri wrote that, all of a sudden, “The Martyr Muhammad al-Durra Playing field in central Gaza, which was once the scene of goals scored by football stars, and the scene too of crowd jubilation and cheering, turned suddenly and without warning into a place of refuge for evacuees in the ongoing Israeli genocidal war on Gaza launched on October 7, last. The stands have fallen silent, the cheers of supporters have ceased, and a curtain has been drawn over football games and their victories while the pain and wailing of the evacuees can be loudly heard, they who were forced to leave their homes and to seek refuge in that playing field where they face the harshest living conditions.”[13]
Well known too is the fact that Israel turned many football fields in the Gaza Sector into prisons and torture and summary executions centers, as happened at the Yarmuk football field where tens of civilians were made to undress in the open air. Unturfed playing fields were turned into collective cemeteries, such as the field next to the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, due to the very large number of martyrs in this ongoing genocide. The destruction was not confined to clubs and playing fields but included the destruction of the Palestine Olympic Committee centers, the Palestine Football Federation and the Higher Council of Youth and Sports.
Other destructive effects
Figures published by the Higher Council of Youth and Sports put the financial losses of the sports sector at around 20 million dollars, a figure that can double by now given the massive destruction of various playing fields and sports facilities. The genocidal war has led to a complete cessation of all sports activity, which meant that more than 6000 players, trainers, and sports officials have lost their sole source of income. It is a well-known fact the sports sector contributes to the upkeep of thousands of families now turned destitute as a result of the genocidal war, rendering them unable to maintain the minimum that sustains life given the massive humanitarian crisis and the loss of food and medication. The war has further prevented club athletes and trainers from representing Palestine at recent Arab and international championships.[14]
Thousands of athletes, like other Gazans, have left their homes due to their total demolition in all regions of the Gaza Strip, reflecting the state of dispersal and complete absence of security as this barbaric genocide unfolds. Speaking to the journalist Nelly al-Masri, Muhammad Silmi, a footballer who played for the Egyptian al-Ahli club, the Shuja`iyya United Club and the Bayt Hanun United Club, stated: “ I was forced to leave my home in the Shuja`iyya quarter of Gaza as the war grew more intense and never imagined I would be moving into a place where I scored goals and cheered along with the crowds. And now every time I enter it I feel a lump in my throat.”[15]
Silmi adds: “When the war began on October 7 last, the premier league football matches were just starting, and in their seventh week. My last match was against my former club, Shuja`iyya United, a match very close to my heart. I felt very sad for my former club, one where I’d spent my best days, because I’d sent a ball into their net. All my dreams and aspirations were shattered, and I felt totally broken in body and spirit.”[16]
With regards to the six times Silmi had to evacuate with his family, moving between Gaza City and the central zone region, Silmi added: “We finally settled in the Durra playing field in the center of Gaza and my major concern at first was to obtain a tent for my family. I succeeded in doing so and managed to get hold of other simple items to protect us against the winter cold and keep my children safe and healthy.”[17]
Expelling Israel from the International Federation (FIFA) due to its genocide
The genocidal war prompted the Palestinian Football Federation to ask FIFA and the IOC to adopt an immediate stand against Israel’s genocide and hold the Israeli occupation legally accountable. The Palestinian Federation sent a memorandum to the FIFA Congress held in Bangkok on May 17 which held Israel responsible for gross violations against Palestinian sports rights and asked for Israel to be expelled from FIFA. Jibril al-Rajjub, head of the Palestinian Football Federation, stated in a communique on the Federation’s website: “We submitted a draft resolution to the FIFA Congress making Israel accountable for its massive violations against Palestinian sports, especially since October 7, 2023.”[18]
However, the president of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, refused requests to hold an immediate vote to expel Israel, arguing that a legal assessment would be made as soon as the FIFA congress convenes in late July to discuss the charges. Of course, one cannot expect FIFA to adopt any resolution condemning Israel or expelling it from the Federation at its upcoming meetings and this not in the least surprising. The Congress was first postponed till the end of July, then till after the Paris Olympiad, then till 31 August, then till October. This means that FIFA had four chances to review the Palestinian resolution and was simply playing fast and loose in an attempt to evade adopting a just stand in favor of the Palestinian Federation. FIFA always claims it is neutral vis-à-vis the conflict in the region, which now includes genocide. Any side that adopts a neutral position towards this war is in effect colluding with Israel’s genocide.
FIFA and Israel accuse the Palestinian Federation of utilizing sports for political purposes. To begin with, one cannot separate sports from politics, since there exist between them a strong intertwinement. In many instances sports activities appear like political activity, and it is no exaggeration to say that no activity can stir national and patriotic feelings like sport. Secondly, this accusation against the Palestinian Federation is pure hypocrisy since both FIFA and Israel use sports for political purposes when this serves their interests but accuse the Palestinian Federation when it uses politics against their interests.
Beginning in the twenties of last century, the Zionists expended all efforts to use sports primarily for political and nationalistic purposes. During that decade, the Bitar para-military organization pretended to be a sports club to hide its true character. During the Great Revolt of 1936, Zionist sports clubs acted in close collusion with the British to try to quell the rebellion. Furthermore, many Jewish sports organizations had close and strong links with Zionist terrorist gangs like the Haganah, the Palmach, the Irgun and the LEHI, among others.[19]
Conclusion
Two questions now come to mind. First, will it be easy to rebuild the sports infrastructure that was destroyed? Secondly, will sporting life return to Gaza as it was before 400 athletes and sporting figures were martyred, and before the total destruction of sport infrastructures? The answer is obviously not easy. Yes, sporting life will not revert to what it was before, but past experiences teach us that due to the siege imposed on Gaza, there was a relative decline in sports activities due to the obstacles placed in their path. Secondly, it is characteristic of our Palestinian people to demonstrate great flexibility as regards reverting to a past situation following savage assaults. Thirdly, Gazan sports have a long history going back many decades, and this inclines us to aver that the recovery of sporting vigor in Gaza will be difficult but not impossible. Fourthly, international sympathy and that of the Arab peoples for the suffering of our people in Gaza will play a major role in restoring and rebuilding Palestinian sports and their infrastructure. Fifthly, the genocidal destruction wreaked upon Palestinian sport may be considered inspirational for that sport to enable it to continue to be competitive in future.
Past experiences confirm that Palestinian sports are distinguished by their ability to endure and to recover quickly from their ordeals, as was the case with Gaza after the Nakba. When Palestine was admitted as a member of FIFA in 1998, it was ranked 191 in the world a year later, but came to rank 73 in 2018, while today it ranks 94. Furthermore, and despite the ongoing genocide, Palestine’s first football team reached the second round of the Asian Games held in Qatar in 2023, and this for the first time in its history and then the third and decisive round also for the first time in its history. In the Paris Olympiad, Palestine fielded its largest ever sports contingent, and Taekwondo athlete `Umar Isma`il Hantuli qualified to compete as the second Palestinian athlete ever to participate in an Olympiad through eliminations and points.
[1] ينظر؛ عصام الخالدي. مئة عام على كرة القدم في فلسطين: منذ مطلع القرن العشرين حتى وقتنا الحاضر. عمان: دار الشروق. 2013.
[2] المصدر السابق.
[3] للمزيد حول تاريخ الحركة الرياضة الفلسطينية، أنظر الرابط الإلكتروني.
[4] المصدر السابق.
[5] ينظر، عصام الخالدي، مصدر سابق.
[6] ينظر، المصدرين السابقين.
[7] عوض الرجوب. "الرياضة الفلسطينية.. 400 شهيد وتدمير 70% من الأندية والملاعب". الجزيرة نت. 3/8/2024.
[8] انظر الرابط الالكتروني.
[9] انظر الرابط الالكتروني.
[10] ينظر توثيق الانتهاكات الإسرائيلية في مجال الرياضةعلى الرابط الالكتروني.
[11] المصدر السابق.
[12] انظر موقع المجلس الأعلى للشباب والرياضة على الرابط الالكتروني.
[13] نيللي المصري. "الملاعب لم تشفع لنجومها". الجزيرة نت. 30/8/2024.
[14] انظر موقع المجلس الأعلى للشباب والرياضةعلى الرابط الإلكتروني.
[15] نيللي المصري. "الملاعب لم تشفع لنجومها". مصدر سابق.
[16] المصدر السابق.
[17] المصدر السابق.
[18] "الفيفا" يناقش مشروع قرار بشأن انتهاكات إسرائيل بحق الرياضة الفلسطينية". وكالة وفا. 9/5/2024.
[19] ينظر، عصام الخالدي، مصدر سابق.