‘One way we can keep fighting is to keep playing – with our football we can show everyone we are still here as a people’
Dublin friendly has huge historical and symbolic significance for Palestine players
SITTING in the dressing-room of the King Abdullah Sports City Stadium in Jeddah, conflicting thoughts raced through Mira Natour’s mind. She was about to play the biggest match of her football career, the opening group game of the West Asian championship against Iraq, but part of her wondered if she and her teammates should be playing at all.
‘Of course, I was very conflicted. There were two contrasting emotions when we played in the West Asian Championship. One was before kick-off and for the 90 minutes, I was thinking about what was happening in Gaza, and I did wonder should we be playing?
‘But the greater emotion, and what was more important, was for us to represent Palestine and represent the people of Gaza,’ explains Natour, who is from Beit Lahm, a small village outside Bethlehem on the West Bank.
‘That is the most important thing. We were playing for them, representing them. We were playing football to show the world that we still exist, and that we are still playing football. That’s our purpose, to show that Palestine is present, that we are here and we have the right to play football, play sport, just like anybody else.’
Despite the utter devastation and horror that was being inflicted on the people of Gaza, Palestine performed superbly to qualify from their group back in February, losing to eventual winners, Jordan in the semi-final.
Just like the men’s team’s achievement in getting out of their group in the West Asian championship, it was a testament to the spirit of the Palestinian people.
It is Natour’s 25th birthday this Wednesday, which also happens to be the 76th anniversary of the Nakba, and she will mark it by being part of the Palestine team that takes on Bohemians in a fundraising friendly at Dalymount Park. It’s an historic occasion, the first time that their national side has played in Europe, and Natour says the significance shouldn’t be underestimated.
‘This is an historical game, a significant moment that will show Palestine is present and still part of the nations of the world,’ Natour said. ‘And it is significant because people in Ireland are showing solidarity with what Palestinian people are going through.’
For most players, international football means packing your passport, meeting your team-mates in the hotel and having a few training sessions before representing your country. Playing for the Palestinian national team presents far greater challenges. Since Israel’s occupation of the West Bank in 1967, it has been difficult to get from one area to the other. There can be numerous checkpoints to pass through, which have only increased since the brutal Hamas attacks on October 7. And there are other obstructions, with the UN reporting in 2018 that there were more than 700 physical obstacles, such as earthmounds and trenches, restricting movement by car in the West Bank.
It means players are often late for training sessions, or sometimes miss them altogether. Striker Bisan Abuaita recalls sessions having to go ahead with only seven or eight players, as team-mates have been delayed or detained.
They are often cancelled at short notice, with players told to train on their own or with local players. Just over a week ago, the team had organised a friendly against the Palestinian under-17 boys team in Ramallah, as preparation for the game against Bohs. However, without prior notice, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) closed the main checkpoint from Bethlehem, meaning the journey to the game for Abuaita and Natour, which should have been an hour and half took more than three hours. Other players couldn’t show up on time.
‘It is just a fact of life for this team, a fact of life for Palestinians, and it has been long before October 7th,’ Abuaita sighs.
‘But since then, there have been more restrictions, more checkpoints. In all my time playing with the national team, I don’t think we have ever had a full training session.’
The team flew from Jordan on Friday, and Dublin will be a rare chance for the squad – made up of players from the West Bank and also from the Palestinian diaspora in Canada, US, Sweden and Germany – to train together. It was similar in Saudi Arabia for the West Asian Championship.
Abuaita had to miss that tournament because of work. The 27year-old, who plays as a striker or on the right wing, works for the Palestinian Working Women’s Society for Development, an NGO with offices in both the West Bank and Gaza and, as such, she has lost colleagues and friends in the horror that has unfolded since October 7th.
‘We have had colleagues in Gaza who have been martyred, who have died,’ Abuaita states.
‘Even here in the West Bank, there has been more raids by the IDF, people have lost their jobs and being arrested, there has been this economic effect that nobody is talking about. I am lucky, I have kept my job, but some other NGOs have had to shut. Businesses have been shut down here in Bethlehem and I have seen the effect the stress has caused.
‘And then there is the long-term effect on everyone’s mental health, like if you are trying to call a colleague in the Gaza office and you can’t get through, immediately you are going to think the worst.
‘Whenever this war stops, every single person in Palestine will need some form of help, therapy.
‘For people of my generation, in their 20s, this is the time when you are supposed to be going out in the world and trying new things, developing as a person, developing your interests and personality.
‘But all they are concerned about at the moment is surviving and that will have an effect on Palestinians for years to come,’ Abuaita observes.
Natour is a defensive midfielder for the team, but she’s also a
It will show we are still present, we are still part of the nations of the world
medical intern and was going to answer the call to help hospitals in Gaza, but was talked out of it by her parents. ‘They were sending out emails asking anyone with medical training to come because the situation was so stark. But my parents didn’t want me to go – they were afraid if I went to Gaza, I wouldn’t come back.
‘Of course, we hear about the awful situations in the hospitals, and it is not just those that have been killed or maimed by the aggression, but there are very sick people, people with cancer and diabetes who can’t get their medicine at the moment, and they are dying because they won’t let their medicine through.’
Given the awful situation in Gaza, and the effect it is having on all Palestinians, it is no wonder that both Natour and Abuaita see football as a release.
‘When I am on a football field and playing football, I feel free and there aren’t many times that Palestinians have that feeling of freedom,’ Abuaita says. However, even that freedom has been restricted. Natour remembers playing a game that has to be postponed because the IDF fired tear gas into the ground. All sports leagues, including football, have been suspended in Palestine since October
7th meaning that, apart from the players from Europe and North America, most of those who will play on Wednesday haven’t played for their club in months.
Among the 34,900 killed by the Israeli onslaught are more than 200 athletes, including Nagham Abu Samara, a sporting icon in Gaza as world karate champion. She was due to participate in the Paris Olympics later this year. Also in that number are at least 164 footballers, including many prominent players and coaches who were beloved across Palestine where football is by far the most popular sport. They include Hani alMasdar, the 42-year coach of the Olympic soccer team who is regarded as Palestine’s greatest-ever footballer, Mohammed Barakat, the 39-year-old striker who was the first player to score more than 100 goals in the Gazan league and Rafah Sports club goalkeeper Mahmoud Osama AlJazzar, who was killed in an airstrike this week. The horror inflicted upon the Palestinian athletic community since the start of the Israeli aggression will see pressure ramped up for sporting sanctions. There will be growing calls ahead of the Paris Games that Israel shouldn’t compete, while two days after the friendly in Dalymount, FIFA Congress in Thailand will debate whether to punish Israel.
It is spearheaded by the Palestinian Football Association. ‘All the football infrastructure in Gaza has been either destroyed, or seriously damaged, including the historic stadium of Al-Yarmuk,’ the Palestine FA wrote in its proposal to debate sanctions.
Nobody expects much to happen, just as little is likely to happen within the IOC. But perhaps more and more athletes will take a stand as the Olympics nears. Abuaita, with a background in politics and development work, is pragmatic about such protests.
‘Of course, I understand the principle and understand why people think that sport can be used in this way, but I also understand why athletes themselves would be reluctant to engage in any kind of boycott, because athletes have spent their whole life, training and trying to be the best, so perhaps it is unfair to ask them to make a stand. It is more to do with the likes of FIFA and IOC,’ Abuaita points out.
‘But, for us, one way that we can keep fighting, and keep reminding people of what is happening, is to keep playing. That is why it is so significant to play this match in Dublin. Football is one way of showing everyone that we are still here as a people.’
■Bohemia■s v Palestine is on this Wednesday, May 15 in Dalymount Park at 7.45pm. All proceeds to Sport for Life Palestine, Medical Aid for Palestine & Aclaí Palestine. Tickets from www.bohemiansfc.ie. Those who cannot be present but wish to support the venture can purchase non-attendance tickets from €5.