Particle.news

Gaza Holds First Organized Football Tournament in More Than Two Years on Cleared Five-a-Side Pitch

Four months after a ceasefire, the matches offered a brief return to normal life with rebuilding still scant.

Overview

  • Local Football Association volunteers cleared rubble, erected fencing and swept an old artificial turf in Gaza City's Tal al-Hawa to make a half-sized pitch playable.
  • Jabalia Youth drew with Al-Sadaqa, and Beit Hanoun drew with Al-Shujaiya, as crowds gathered behind a chain-link fence and on damaged walls.
  • Players described conflicting emotions and losses, with Jabalia Youth’s Youssef Jendiya noting many absent teammates killed, injured or away for treatment.
  • Beit Hanoun’s Amjad Abu Awda said the teams aimed to show that play and daily life continue despite widespread destruction.
  • Reconstruction remains minimal, Israeli orders have displaced residents from nearly two-thirds of the strip into a narrow coastal area, and the former Yarmouk Stadium site now shelters families in tents.