Australia to donate match fees to Gaza

LONDON – Australia’s players will donate a portion of their match fees from their World Cup qualifying fixture with Palestine on Tuesday towards Oxfam’s ongoing humanitarian efforts in Gaza, with midfielder and player’s union president Jackson Irvine calling the ongoing conflict in the region ‘unfathomable.’

The Socceroos will face Palestine in a FIFA World Cup qualifier at Kuwait’s Jaber Al-Ahmad International Stadium on Tuesday evening after the fixture was relocated following the security situation in the region amid the Israel-Hamas war.

Football Australia representatives had been on the ground in the West Bank a week before the outbreak of the conflict to scout training and accommodation options for what would have been the first competitive fixture Palestine had hosted since a World Cup qualifier was staged against Saudi Arabia in Al-Ram in 2019.

MILITANT DEATHS

At least 11 470 Palestinians – twothirds of them women and minors – have been killed since the war began, according to Palestinian health authorities, who do not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. About 2 700 people are reported missing.

Israel vowed to wipe out Hamas after

the militant group launched its Oct. 7 incursion. Some 1 200 people have been killed in Israel, mostly during the initial attack, and around 240 were taken captive by militants.

“It’s unfathomable to comprehend,” Irvine told ESPN and AAP. “You’re talking about one of the most complicated geopolitical issues of the last 100 years. It’s something we’re aware of, something we have spoken about as a group and as staff in terms of not just the game, but recognising what that means.

“For us, even thinking about the Palestinian players themselves and what this game means for them as individuals and trying to process playing football in a time like this. It’s a difficult situation to process.