Soccer returns to war-torn Gaza with first organized tournament in over two years

On a worn-out five-a-side pitch in a wasteland of ruined buildings and rubble, Jabalia Youth took on Al-Sadaqa in the Gaza Strip’s first organized soccer tournament in more than two years.

The match ended in a draw, as did a second fixture featuring Beit Hanoun vs Al-Shujaiya. But the spectators were hardly disappointed, cheering and shaking the chain-link fence next to the Palestine Pitch in the ruins of Gaza City’s Tal al-Hawa district.

Boys climbed a broken concrete wall or peered through holes in the ruins to get a look. Someone was banging on a drum.

Youssef Jendiya, 21, one of the Jabalia Youth players from a part of Gaza largely depopulated and bulldozed by Israeli forces, described his feeling at being back on the pitch: “Confused. Happy, sad, joyful, happy.”

“People search for water in the morning: food, bread. Life is a little difficult. But there is a little left of the day, when you can come and play soccer and express some of the joy inside you,” he said.

“You come to the stadium missing many of your teammates… killed, injured, or those who travelled for treatment. So the joy is incomplete.”

Four months after a ceasefire ended most fighting in Gaza — after a two-year war sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, invasion and massacre of some 1,200 people in southern Israel, and the abduction by the terror group of 251 hostages — there has been almost no reconstruction. Continued conflict between Israel and Hamas forced all residents out of nearly two-thirds of the strip, jamming more than two million people into a sliver of ruins along the coast, most in makeshift tents or damaged buildings.

The former site of Gaza City’s 9,000-seat Yarmouk Stadium, which Israeli forces leveled during the war and used as a detention center, now houses displaced families in white tents, crowded in the brown dirt of what was once the pitch.

For this week’s tournament, the Football Association managed to clear the rubble from a collapsed wall off a half-sized pitch, put up a fence and sweep the debris off the old artificial turf.

By coming out, the teams were “delivering a message”, said Amjad Abu Awda, 31, a player for Beit Hanoun. “That no matter what happened in terms of destruction and genocidal war, we continue with playing, and with life. Life must continue.”

Israel adamantly rejects accusations that it committed genocide in Gaza, saying it took measures to protect noncombatants while Hamas fought from among civilian populations.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.