Khan Younis, Gaza – Within the ruins of his dwelling in Khan Younis, 75-year-old Shaker Safi gently thumbs via fading images of his son Mohammed’s sporting profession.
Medals, trophies, crew huddles, and group photographs of younger athletes coached by Mohammed now function a haunting memorial to a dream destroyed by battle.
On November 15, 2023, Mohammed Safi – a soccer coach and bodily schooling instructor – was killed in an Israeli air strike.
He had spent years constructing a legacy of hope via sport, coaching at faculties and group golf equipment, and remodeling underdog groups into native champions.
A graduate in bodily schooling from Al-Aqsa College, Mohammed was the top coach of Al-Amal Soccer Membership in southern Gaza and was broadly admired for his work nurturing younger expertise aged between six and 16.
“My son dreamt of representing Palestine internationally,” Shaker says, surrounded by remnants of his son’s accolades. “He believed sport might raise youth from despair. However battle reached him earlier than he might attain the world.”
Now displaced, Mohammed’s spouse Nermeen and their 4 youngsters – 16-year-old Shaker Jr, Amir, 14, Alma, 11, and Taif, 7 – reside with the painful void created by his dying.
The kids cling to their father’s final soccer and training notes as keepsakes.
Nermeen, an artwork instructor, gently wipes away Taif’s tears when she asks, “Why did they take Daddy from us?”
“He was a person of goals, not politics,” Nermeen says. “He wished to grow to be a global referee. He wished his grasp’s diploma. As an alternative, he was killed for being an emblem of life and youth.”
Mohammed Safi is certainly one of a whole lot of athletes and sports activities professionals who’ve been killed or displaced because the battle started.
In response to the Palestinian Olympic Committee, 582 athletes have been killed since October 7, 2023, a lot of them nationwide crew gamers, coaches, and directors.
Sports activities changed by survival
For many who stay alive in Gaza, survival has changed sporting ambition.
Yousef Abu Shawarib is a 20-year-old goalkeeper for Rafah’s premier league soccer membership.
In Could 2024, he and his household fled their dwelling and took shelter at Khan Younis Stadium – the identical area the place he as soon as performed official matches.
Right this moment, the stadium is a shelter for displaced households, its artificial turf now lined with tents as an alternative of gamers.
“That is the place my coach used to temporary me earlier than video games,” Yousef says, standing close to what was the bench space, now a water distribution level. “Now I wait right here for water, not for kickoff.”
His routine at the moment includes gentle, irregular coaching inside his tent, hoping to protect a fraction of his health. However his goals of finding out sports activities sciences in Germany and taking part in professionally are gone.
“Now, I solely hope we’ve got one thing to eat tomorrow,” he tells Al Jazeera. “The battle didn’t simply destroy fields – it destroyed our futures.”
When he seems on the charred stadium, he doesn’t see a short lived displacement.
“This was not collateral injury. It was systematic. It’s like they need to erase the whole lot about us – even our video games.”
Hope beneath the rubble
Nonetheless, just like the patches of grass that survived the blasts, some hope stays.
Shadi Abu Armanah, head coach of Palestine’s amputee soccer crew, had devised a six-month plan to renew coaching.
His 25 gamers and 5 teaching employees had been constructing momentum earlier than the battle on Gaza. The crew had competed internationally, together with in a 2019 match in France. Earlier than hostilities started, they had been getting ready for an additional occasion in November 2023 and an occasion in West Asia set for October 2025.
“Now, we will’t even collect,” Shadi says. “Each facility we used has been destroyed. The gamers have misplaced their houses. Most have misplaced family members. There’s nowhere protected to coach – no gear, no area, nothing.”
Supported by the Worldwide Committee of the Purple Cross, the crew had as soon as symbolised resilience. Coaching classes had been greater than drills – they had been lifelines. “For amputees, sport was a second probability,” Shadi says. “Now they’re simply making an attempt to outlive.”
Shadi himself is displaced. His dwelling, too, was bombed. “The golf equipment I labored for are gone. The gamers are both useless or scattered. If the battle ends at the moment, we’ll nonetheless want years to convey again even a fraction of what was misplaced.”
He provides, “I coached throughout many golf equipment and divisions. Nearly all their amenities have been diminished to rubble. It’s not only a pause – it’s erasure.”
A scientific erasure
The scope of devastation extends past private loss.
In response to Asaad al-Majdalawi, vp of the Palestinian Olympic Committee, Gaza’s whole sporting infrastructure is on the point of collapse. No less than 270 sports activities amenities have been broken or destroyed: 189 utterly flattened and 81 partially broken, with preliminary estimates of fabric losses within the a whole lot of hundreds of thousands of {dollars}.
“Each main part of Gaza’s sports activities system has been hit,” al-Majdalawi instructed Al Jazeera. “The Olympic Committee workplaces, sports activities federations, golf equipment, college and college sports activities programmes – even personal sports activities amenities have been focused. It’s a complete assault.”
Among the many fallen are high-profile athletes like Nagham Abu Samra, Palestine’s worldwide karate champion; Majed Abu Maraheel, the primary Palestinian to hold the Olympic flag on the 1996 Atlanta Video games; Olympic soccer coach Hani al-Masdar; and nationwide athletics coach Bilal Abu Sam’an. A whole bunch of others stay injured or lacking, complicating correct assessments.
“This isn’t simply loss – it’s extermination,” al-Majdalawi says. “Every athlete was a group pillar. They weren’t numbers. They had been symbols of hope, unity, and perseverance. Dropping them has deeply wounded the Palestinian society.”
He warns that past the instant human toll, the interruption of sports activities actions for a 12 months and a half will end in bodily, psychological, {and professional} regression for remaining athletes. “You lose greater than muscle and ability – you lose goal.”
A world silence
Al-Majdalawi believes the worldwide response has been alarmingly insufficient. When Gaza’s sports activities group reaches out to world federations, Olympic our bodies, and ministers of youth and sport, they’re met with silence.
“In personal, many worldwide officers sympathise,” he says. “However on the decision-making stage, Israel appears to function above the legislation. There’s no accountability. It’s like sport doesn’t matter when it’s Palestinian. The worldwide and worldwide sports activities establishments seem complicit via their silence, ignoring all worldwide legal guidelines, human rights, and the governing guidelines of the worldwide sports activities system,” he says.
He believes that if the battle ended at the moment, it could nonetheless take 5 to 10 years to rebuild what has been misplaced. Even that gloomy timeline is predicated on the belief that the blockade ends and worldwide funding turns into obtainable.
“We have now been constructing this sports activities sector since 1994,” al-Majdalawi says. “It took us a long time to build up data, expertise, and professionalism. Now, it’s all been levelled in months.”
Because the battle continues, the destiny of Gaza’s sports activities sector hangs by a thread. But amid the ruins, fathers like Shaker Safi, athletes like Yousef, and coaches like Shadi maintain on to 1 unyielding perception: that sport will as soon as once more be a supply of hope, identification, and life for Palestinians.
This piece was revealed in collaboration with Egab.
