GAZA – Palestinian footballer Mohammed Abu Bayad, whose leg was amputated after being injured by Israeli fire, has become the first to score using crutches in a football match in Gaza.
Using his crutches Abu Bayad ran as fast as he could, kicked the ball and scored a goal becoming the first to score in a football match between Palestinians whose legs were amputated after they were hit by Israeli fire.
“I played football before I was injured and my life changed, but I was determined to continue,” said Abu Bayad, at a stadium west of Gaza City.
After a break of a few months due to the coronavirus pandemic, the tournament between four clubs culminated Thursday in the final, organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Palestinian Football Association.
Abu Bayad was shot by the Israeli army in 2014 during the last war between Israel and Gaza’s rulers, the armed Islamist movement Hamas.
According to the United Nations, some 8,000 other Palestinians were injured by Israeli army fire during the “great march of return” protests that started in March 2018.
For several months, thousands of Palestinians gathered along the barrier between the Gaza Strip and the Jewish state, heavily guarded by the Israeli army.
They were demanding an end to the decade-long Israeli blockade on the enclave.
They also demanded the right of Palestinians to return to the lands they fled, or were driven from, when Israel was created in 1948.
Ahmed Abu Nar, who also scored a goal for his team, lost his left leg during those protests.
“It was very difficult when I was wounded,” he said. “Playing football helps me psychologically and physically, and makes me happy.”
His teammate Mohammad Abu Samra said his interest in the game grew after his injury.
“I wanted to challenge myself and prove to the Israeli enemy that we will not surrender,” Abu Samra said.
For ICRC spokesman Hesham Mhanna, the players are “heroes,” “victims of armed conflicts” who send a message that it is possible to overcome obstacles stemming from disability.
In Gaza, loss of a leg doesn’t deter ‘hero’ footballers
https://arab.news/j7ybg
In Gaza, loss of a leg doesn’t deter ‘hero’ footballers
- Footballer Mohammed Abu Bayad, who plays using crutches, played football before he was injured and his life changed but was determined to continue
- International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Palestinian Football Association co-organized a four-club tournament after few-month break due to coronavirus pandemic in Gaza
‘No one to back us’: Arab bus drivers in Israel grapple with racist attacks
- “People began running toward me and shouting at me, ‘Arab, Arab!’” recalled Khatib, a Palestinian from east Jerusalem
JERUSALEM: What began as an ordinary shift for Jerusalem bus driver Fakhri Khatib ended hours later in tragedy.
A chaotic spiral of events, symptomatic of a surge in racist violence targeting Arab bus drivers in Israel, led to the death of a teenager, Khatib’s arrest and calls for him to be charged with aggravated murder.
His case is an extreme one, but it sheds light on a trend bus drivers have been grappling with for years, with a union counting scores of assaults in Jerusalem alone and advocates lamenting what they describe as an anaemic police response.
One evening in early January, Khatib found his bus surrounded as he drove near the route of a protest by Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community.
“People began running toward me and shouting at me, ‘Arab, Arab!’” recalled Khatib, a Palestinian from east Jerusalem.
“They were cursing at me and spitting on me, I became very afraid,” he told AFP.
Khatib said he called the police, fearing for his life after seeing soaring numbers of attacks against bus drivers in recent months.
But when no police arrived after a few minutes, Khatib decided to drive off to escape the crowd, unaware that 14-year-old Yosef Eisenthal was holding onto his front bumper.
The Jewish teenager was killed in the incident and Khatib arrested.
Police initially sought charges of aggravated murder but later downgraded them to negligent homicide.
Khatib was released from house arrest in mid-January and is awaiting the final charge.
Breaking windows
Drivers say the violence has spiralled since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023 and continued despite the ceasefire, accusing the state of not doing enough to stamp it out or hold perpetrators to account.
The issue predominantly affects Palestinians from annexed east Jerusalem and the country’s Arab minority, Palestinians who remained in what is now Israel after its creation in 1948 and who make up about a fifth of the population.
Many bus drivers in cities such as Jerusalem and Haifa are Palestinian.
There are no official figures tracking racist attacks against bus drivers in Israel.
But according to the union Koach LaOvdim, or Power to the Workers, which represents around 5,000 of Israel’s roughly 20,000 bus drivers, last year saw a 30 percent increase in attacks.
In Jerusalem alone, Koach LaOvdim recorded 100 cases of physical assault in which a driver had to be evacuated for medical care.
Verbal incidents, the union said, were too numerous to count.
Drivers told AFP that football matches were often flashpoints for attacks — the most notorious being those of the Beitar Jerusalem club, some of whose fans have a reputation for anti-Arab violence.
The situation got so bad at the end of last year that the Israeli-Palestinian grassroots group Standing Together organized a “protective presence” on buses, a tactic normally used to deter settler violence against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
One evening in early February, a handful of progressive activists boarded buses outside Jerusalem’s Teddy Stadium to document instances of violence and defuse the situation if necessary.
“We can see that it escalates sometimes toward breaking windows or hurting the bus drivers,” activist Elyashiv Newman told AFP.
Outside the stadium, an AFP journalist saw young football fans kicking, hitting and shouting at a bus.
One driver, speaking on condition of anonymity, blamed far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir for whipping up the violence.
“We have no one to back us, only God.”
‘Crossing a red line’
“What hurts us is not only the racism, but the police handling of this matter,” said Mohamed Hresh, a 39-year-old Arab-Israeli bus driver who is also a leader within Koach LaOvdim.
He condemned a lack of arrests despite video evidence of assaults, and the fact that authorities dropped the vast majority of cases without charging anyone.
Israeli police did not respond to AFP requests for comment on the matter.
In early February, the transport ministry launched a pilot bus security unit in several cities including Jerusalem, where rapid-response motorcycle teams will work in coordination with police.
Transport Minister Miri Regev said the move came as violence on public transport was “crossing a red line” in the country.
Micha Vaknin, 50, a Jewish bus driver and also a leader within Koach LaOvdim, welcomed the move as a first step.
For him and his colleague Hresh, solidarity among Jewish and Arab drivers in the face of rising division was crucial for change.
“We will have to stay together,” Vaknin said, “not be torn apart.”
