Through sports, a lens on the Gaza war
Sports helped highlight the scope of Israel's ethnic cleansing, exposed the hypocrisy of institutions such as FIFA, and even reflected examples of peaceful resistance and moments of impossible joy.
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I was in Cairo when I first heard about the October 7, 2023 attacks. That morning, I was sitting in my apartment, doomscrolling through Twitter as the videos started flooding in. Within hours, the scale of the tragedy became clear. I turned to my cousin, who had stopped by on that ill-fated day, and said, “Gaza is doomed.”
If there was ever a time I wished to be wrong, it was then. Yet, this past year has been defined by destruction, suffering, and unwavering tribalism, pushing the entire Middle East—my home—to the edge of chaos. In retaliation to the Oct. 7 attacks, Israel launched a full-scale war in Gaza that has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians and injured another 98,000, according the enclave’s health ministry. Almost all of Gaza’s population has been displaced amid an ongoing blockade that has led to severe shortages of food, clean water and medicine.
Israel’s assault on Gaza has also laid waste to the strip’s infrastructure, razing entire neighbourhoods and destroying agriculture, libraries, universities, and hospitals alike. Palestinian sports have not been spared in Israel’s ongoing war. All of the city’s football stadiums have been destroyed or partially damaged, while a total of 49 other sports facilities have suffered similar fates.
And yet, despite facing accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice and a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire, Israel continued its assault on the besieged strip with blatant disregard for international law. This deepened my sense of helplessness—a feeling of paralysis as though I was drowning in a wave of sorrow. There was little I could do to ease the suffering of the people of Gaza, our neighbors just across the border. But I couldn’t sit idly by. So I chose to do the one thing I knew how: write.
Over the past year, I have dedicated much of my writing on Sports Politika to the ongoing war on Gaza. I reported on how Israel used a historic football pitch in Gaza as an internment camp for captured Palestinians, including women and children. I wrote about the destruction of the city's sports infrastructure; how Palestine’s first ever Olympian died in Gaza from a lack of treatment amid the ongoing war; and published a list of all the athletes who had been killed by Israel’s assault on Gaza.
Yet beyond the tragic undertones of the reporting, there were also stories of hope and resistance, such as the Palestinian Football Association's ongoing efforts to sanction Israel from international football, and the Palestinian national team's historic journey through World Cup qualification.
Most recently, I wrote about 80 boys in Gaza have found a fleeting sense of normalcy amid the ongoing war by participating in football training sessions hosted by the PFA in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in southern Gaza.
It may seem odd to report on the war’s impact on sports, especially when over 175 journalists have been killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza while doing their jobs. But I believe sports are a microcosm of the world, offering insight into power dynamics and shedding light on broader societal issues.
In this case, it underscores the scope of Israel’s ethnic cleansing, revealing how Palestinian sports and athletes in Gaza and beyond have been systematically targeted. It reflects peaceful resistance—whether through the success of the Palestinian national team or the joy of young boys playing football amid the devastation. It also highlighted the moral ineptitude and hypocrisy of global sports institutions like FIFA and the International Olympic Committee, which advocate for peace through sports yet refuse to enforce their own mandates to sanction nations that deny others the basic right to participate in sports.
Sometimes, sports intersect directly with political events, as when a missile strike on a football pitch in Israeli-occupied Golan Heights became one of the catalysts that expanded the conflict. Now, instead of only witnessing bombs fall on Gaza, we see them raining down on Beirut—a city I visited for the first time in July, captivated by its beauty.
I can never fully comprehend the horrors Palestinians in Gaza have endured over the past year. Nor those of the hostages still in captivity. Still, I hope that by continuing to write about the war’s impact on my small corner of focus, I can offer something meaningful—something beyond the outrage, anger, and despair that flood the online world. It won’t bring peace, but right now, I’m not sure what will.
Author note: All of my reporting on Israel-Palestine can be found here.
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