The Thousand Martyrs Cup: Football Returns to Palestine After Three Years of Genocide
 An Ittihad Deir al-Balah football player jumps over an agility ladder in a training session ahead of the Thousand Martyrs Cup. August 2026. Courtesy of Ittihad Deir al-Balah.On a dirt field in the dense coastal neighborhood of Deir al-Balah last week, players from Ittihad Deir al-Balah—one of Gaza’s three standing football clubs—gathered their torn balls, scuffed training cones, and rusted equipment. Surrounded by rubble and with Israeli drones buzzing overhead, they were preparing to train for a football tournament, the first in Palestine since 2023. Last month, the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) announced the return of football to clubs across Palestine and Lebanon after a three-year hiatus marked by Israel’s genocide in Gaza, terrorism in the occupied West Bank, and a brutal war on Lebanon. The resumption of the football association’s leagues in Gaza, the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon will open on September 4 with the Thousand Martyrs Cup, a two-month tournament named for the more than 1,000 Palestinian athletes killed by Israel since October 7, 2023.Over 240 clubs are participating in the tournament: 50 clubs in Gaza, 165 in the West Bank and Jerusalem, and 28 clubs in Lebanon. Opening games will simultaneously kick off at 6 p.m. Jerusalem Time on Friday. Matches in Gaza will be played on four chewed-up artificial turf five-a-side football courts, including Ittihad Deir al-Balah’s playground. In the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Lebanon, the matches will be played on standard eleven-a-side pitches.Players and coaches told Drop Site News they have mixed feelings about the resumption of Palestinian football, with Israel’s violence making life all but impossible, while at the same time wanting to pay tribute to the martyrs and stand resilient.Yet it is unclear if players in Gaza will be able to even show up to the tournament, the assistant coach of Ittihad Deir al-Balah, Motaz Rabia, told Drop Site News. He said the continued daily Israeli airstrikes and relentless attacks have forced the team’s training sessions to be cancelled and have restricted players’ movement.Just last week, Israeli fighter jets bombed the neighbourhood adjacent to the club building in Deir al-Balah as well as the Abu-Salim Mosque downtown. On Saturday, an Israeli airstrike on a motorcycle in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza killed Khadamat Jabaliya club star Abdel-Fattah Abu-Aish, less than a week before the tournament.Every club in Gaza has suffered tremendous losses. Ittihad Deir al-Balah alone lost at least ten players, staffers, and coaches in Israeli attacks, including Asian Football Confederation-approved manager Hani Al-Mosadar and star midfielder Nasrallah Al-Mqataa. Other players have been forced to quit football to try and provide bare life essentials for their families.At least 1,013 athletes have been killed by Israel in Gaza and the West Bank since October 2023, according to the PFA, including nearly 570 footballers, over 100 of them children. The Israeli military has also destroyed or damaged nearly 270 sports facilities in Gaza, including nine out of 10 stadiums and 51 out of 54 club facilities.The PFA spokesperson in Gaza, Mustafa Siyam, told Drop Site he hopes the tournament will restore “some semblance of normalcy” for Gaza’s footballers and mark the “start of a new chapter” for football in the devastated enclave.In Gaza, a historically intense derby between Khadamat Rafah and Shabab Rafah will kick off the Thousand Martyrs Tournament: Two rivals from a once-vibrant city, now razed and occupied by Israeli forces. Meanwhile, Jabal Al-Mokaber will play against Shabab Al-Khalil in the opening match in the West Bank. Al-Ansar will take on Al-Nahda in Lebanon.“Despite Israel’s deliberate targeting of athletes and ban on the entry of football equipment, we are very keen on reviving football activities for our players,” Siyam said. “This tournament carries many messages, especially since it bears the names of our very dear players who were killed during the genocide. It also holds out hope for a better future for football in Gaza.Israel blocks footballs. The Ittihad Deir al-Balah football club has barely been able to hold training sessions once or twice a week ahead of the tournament, and scarcely has any equipment to function with daily Israeli airstrikes and an ongoing crippling siege, according to Rabia.We can’t afford a training ball. Israel blocks footballs. One flat ball now costs around $400. Our players can’t afford the food to rebuild their fitness and physicality. We’re very reluctant to participate, but we’re playing to honor our martyred players and staffers,” Rabia told Drop Site. “We have players now displaced in the southernmost part of Gaza. We can’t even cover their transportation fees and bring them to play. Therefore, we have called up the youths.”  Ittihad Deir al-Balah assistant coach Motaz Rabia (right) next to the club’s manager in a training session before the Thousand Martyrs Cup. August 2026. Courtesy of Ittihad Deir al-Balah.Rabia said that football means a lot to everyone at the club and that their continued involvement is emblematic of their steadfastness.Sports unite people. In Gaza, football has died. We have so much talent and potential for the world, but we are completely shrugged off. I hope FIFA listens to us and treats us as human beings. We deserve to be seen and take our chances,” he lamented. All we want to see in Gaza now is an actual ceasefire because it doesn’t exist,” he added. “I wish to wake up one day without more bombings and casualties. And we hope to see justice in this world where basic human rights and rules apply to all, including Palestinians.”Under its president Gianni Infantino, FIFA controversially took part in President Donald Trump’s so-called Board of Peace, which has been tasked with overseeing Gaza, and pledged to reconstruct Gaza’s football infrastructure through a $75 million plan announced at the inaugural meeting in February. There has been zero progress on the plan so far.Siyam, the PFA spokesperson, told Drop Site that the association was not informed of the details of the alleged FIFA plan but said any support was “welcome” and urged FIFA to expedite it.Meanwhile, Israel has routinely violated the “ceasefire” that went into effect in October 2025, killing over 1,300 Palestinians and wounding over 4,400, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, while severely restricting the entry of life essentials, humanitarian aid, medical supplies, and reconstruction materials and equipment. The Israeli military has also continued to encroach on Palestinian land, pushing the “yellow line” that demarcates its line of control further westward, where it now occupies nearly 70% of the Gaza Strip.“I may be killed in the next 15 minutes,” Mohammed Al-Taramasi, 26, who plays right back for Shabab Jabaliya Club and Palestine’s Olympic Team, lives in a dilapidated tent in the Jabaliya refugee camp close to the “yellow line,” where he is forced to survive daily artillery shelling, shooting, and attacks from tanks and quadcopters from Israeli troops nearby.Al-Taramasi was displaced from his home nearly three years ago when Israeli warplanes carpet-bombed his neighborhood in the camp on October 28, 2023, killing his father and dozens of extended family members. He somehow survived the attack and buried his father, whom he described as “his backbone”.“I used to wake up for my training. Now, gunshots terrify my family and me in the morning,” Al-Taramasi told Drop Site. “I am now talking to you on the phone, and I may be killed in the next 15 minutes. My father was killed. I am displaced. I missed out on offers from Egypt and Libya in 2024 because I couldn’t leave Gaza. My life resembles hell on earth,” he said, choking up with grief and sorrow.“There are two sides of the tournament: positive and negative,” he continued. “Positive because it is a tribute to our colleagues on the football stage. Negative because we’re not getting paid enough and the cup may have to be called off. It’s a nerve-wracking situation for all of us. But I wish to lift the trophy for the sake of the slain footballers and my teammates and neighbors.”Al-Taramasi said he hopes international football bodies and media outlets would focus more on the plight of Gaza’s football players and that many of them have the potential to embark on stellar careers if only they were given the same attention as players abroad.  Players from Ittihad Deir al-Balah football club train on a dirt playground ahead of the Thousand Martyrs Cup. August 2026. Courtesy of Ittihad Deir al-Balah.Outside of Palestine, Palestinian footballers living in exile also face enormous challenges. Palestinian playmaker and winger Mohammed Hamada, 25, plays for Al-Okhwa Club in the Saida refugee camp in Lebanon. Hamada’s grandparents were forced from their home in Acre, on the northern coastline of historic Palestine, during the Nakba in 1948. Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are unable to return to or visit any part of Palestine, since Lebanon-approved travel documents are not recognized by Israeli authorities and they cannot apply for a visa to enter the Occupied Territories.Similar to Palestinian athletes in Gaza and the West Bank who are denied permits by Israel to travel, Mohammed has had opportunities to play abroad, but his precarious status in Lebanon with no passport and only a travel document left him unable to pursue his dreams. Ahead of the tournament on Friday, he says this cup means more than anything to him and he is eager to play in honor of his people in Gaza.“I can’t enter Palestine. I have been heartbroken by what has been happening during the last three years. Playing in this tournament is so emotionally overwhelming that I can’t put it into words,” he said in a quavering voice. “I am determined to win the trophy to pay the finest tribute to the thousand martyrs. This tournament will offer us a chance to convey our message as football players, and football is a great avenue for speaking up.”“I hope the world looks more at Gaza and Palestine,” he added. “It’s enough of what has already transpired. I want all the international support, particularly from FIFA and football associations, to go to the players in Gaza and Palestine. We all failed Gaza, no matter what we do.” |
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Prof. Engr. Zamir Ahmed Awan
Founder & Chair, Global Silk Route Research Alliance
Zamir Ahmed Awan is the founder and Chair of the Global Silk Route Research Alliance, a think tank in Islamabad. He studied engineering at Shanghai University in the 1980s, and years later he went back to China as Pakistan's science counsellor in Beijing, from 2010 until 2016, working on science and higher education cooperation between the two countries.…
