JERUSALEM: Former Palestine national team player Suleiman Al-Obeid, known as the “Palestinian Pele,” has been killed by Israeli gunfire in the Gaza Strip, the sport’s local governing body said.
Obeid, 41, was killed Wednesday when Israeli forces “targeted people waiting for humanitarian aid in the southern Gaza Strip,” the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) said in a statement.
With Gaza in the throes of a hunger crisis, the UN rights office said last month that Israeli forces had killed more than 1,300 Palestinians trying to get food aid in the territory since late May.
An ex-star of the Khadamat Al-Shati club in Gaza, Obeid played 24 international matches for team Palestine, the PFA said.
“During his long career, Al-Obeid scored more than 100 goals, making him one of the brightest stars of Palestinian football,” it added.
The midfielder also played for the Al-Amari Youth Center Club in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.
While living there in 2010, Obeid was among six players on the national team from Gaza who were turned back at the Jordanian border for “security reasons” on their way to a friendly in Mauritania.
An Israeli security official said at the time that the players had failed to renew special permits allowing them to play in the West Bank.
“When I heard that we would be forbidden from traveling I was very upset, because any athlete dreams of wearing his national jersey in international forums,” Obeid told AFP in 2010.
“We want to be able to travel freely with our families, just like athletes anywhere else in the world.”
Israel had previously allowed the six players to travel with the team.
Born in Gaza City, Obeid was married and had five children.
Since the start of the Gaza war, triggered by Palestinian militant group Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel, 662 people from the sport and scouting sector have been killed, including 321 in the football community, according to the PFA.
Israel’s offensive has killed at least 61,258 in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
The 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Palestinian ex-footballer killed by Israeli forces in Gaza
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Palestinian ex-footballer killed by Israeli forces in Gaza
- Former Palestine national team player Suleiman Al-Obeid, known as the “Palestinian Pele,” has been killed by Israeli gunfire in the Gaza Strip, the sport’s local governing body said
WHO alarmed by health workers, civilians ‘forcibly detained’ in Sudan
- The WHO counts and verifies attacks on health care, though it does not attribute blame as it is not an investigation agency
GENEVA: The World Health Organization voiced alarm Tuesday at reports that more than 70 health workers and around 5,000 civilians were being detained in Nyala in southwestern Sudan.
Since April 2023, Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been locked in a brutal conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced 12 million more and devastated infrastructure.
“We are concerned by reports from Nyala, the capital of Sudan’s South Darfur state, that more than 70 health care workers are being forcibly detained along with about 5,000 civilians,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X.
“According to the Sudan Doctors Network, the detainees are being held in cramped and unhealthy conditions, and there are reports of disease outbreaks,” the UN health agency chief said.
The RSF and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North faction allied earlier this year, forming a coalition based in Nyala.
“WHO is gathering more information on the detentions and conditions of those being held. The situation is complicated by the ongoing insecurity,” said Tedros.
“The reported detentions of health workers and thousands more people is deeply concerning. Health workers and civilians should be protected at all times and we call for their safe and unconditional release.”
The WHO counts and verifies attacks on health care, though it does not attribute blame as it is not an investigation agency.
In total, the WHO has recorded 65 attacks on health care in Sudan this year, resulting in 1,620 deaths and 276 injuries. Of those attacks, 54 impacted personnel, 46 impacted facilities and 33 impacted patients.
Earlier Tuesday, UN rights chief Volker Turk said he was “alarmed by the further intensification in hostilities” in the Kordofan region in southern Sudan.
“I urge all parties to the conflict and states with influence to ensure an immediate ceasefire and to prevent atrocities,” he said.
“Medical facilities and personnel have specific protection against attack under international humanitarian law,” Turk added.
