800 martyrs: How ‘Israel’ has relentlessly targeted athletes in Gaza and the West Bank

Since October 7, 2023, “Israel” has not only devastated towers, infrastructure, hospitals, and schools, but has also deliberately targeted the Palestinian sports sector, a vital emblem of national identity and a pillar of Palestine’s soft power on the international stage.

For Palestinians, sport carries profound symbolism; to the Israeli occupation, it is far more than mere competition or a civil activity. 

It is a banner raised in the name of Palestine, an anthem played in global arenas, and a team wearing a jersey and flag that “Tel Aviv” refuses to acknowledge.

It is therefore no surprise that stadiums, clubs, and athletes have been deliberately targeted in “Israel’s” campaign of aggression, an effort to erase Palestine’s image as a living, vibrant nation brimming with hope and ambition.

In this brutal context, Palestinian sport has emerged as a silent victim of the assault; the occupation’s military machinery has destroyed sports facilities, bombed playing fields, and crushed entire teams beneath the rubble. Medals, certificates, and jerseys have all been reduced to ashes.

Beyond the physical devastation, the Israeli killing machine has repeatedly targeted dozens of athletes, scouts, and coaches, striking at the very symbols of life, belonging, and resilience within Palestinian society.

What is unfolding cannot be separated from a systematic policy aimed at dismantling every pillar of the Palestinian state, from culture and education to health and sport, in a relentless bid to erase the very fabric of Palestinian society beneath the rubble of besieged Gaza.

The occupation does not merely destroy bricks and mortar; it seeks to break spirits, erase symbols, and silence any voice that might remind the world of Palestine’s identity, its flag, its heroes running on the track in the name of their people.

‘Bloody July’

Before July 2025 drew to a close, the Palestinian Olympic Committee announced that 40 Palestinian athletes had been killed by Israeli fire within a single month, from Gaza to the West Bank.

These victims join the ranks of dozens more whose passion and talent have been silenced by the occupation, their names etched not in team rosters or club records, but in the Palestinian roll of honor.

The most recent was Mohammad Hadhaleen, 31, a player for Masafer Yatta and Sousa clubs in the southern West Bank, who was shot dead by Israeli settlers in the village of Umm al-Khair on July 26.

Mohammad Hadhaleen was neither armed nor carrying any flag or emblem; like many others, he was simply trying to provide for his family when a bullet fueled by racial hatred ended his life.

In a statement released on July 29, 2025, titled “Bloody July: 40 Palestinian Athletes, Scouts and Youth Killed in One Month,” the Palestinian Olympic Committee affirmed that Hadhaleen was no exception, but rather one link in a systematic campaign targeting dozens of athletes, coaches, and scouts in an open-ended war of extermination since October 7, 2023.

Ironically, the statement came as the world prepares for the 2028 Olympic Games and global sporting events, while Palestinians are left to receive the bodies of their fallen athletes.

“With each passing day, new chapters of the Palestinian sports tragedy unfold. These athletes are not killed on battlefields; they are assassinated while running after their children or searching for water and medicine. This war of starvation now hunts athletes, just as it does doctors and civilians,” The Olympic Committee stated. 

Unforgettable Names

He stressed that these attacks are not “collateral damage” but a systematic elimination of symbols of life and belonging; in Palestine, sport is more than just a game, it is a means of survival, a form of political expression, and a soft power that unsettles the occupation.

Among the forty who fell in July are some of the brightest names in Palestinian sport, including Muhannad Fadl al-Lili, a star of the Khidmat al-Maghazi football club and the Palestinian national team, who was killed on July 3 in an airstrike on the Gaza Strip.

Mustafa Abu Amira, a former player for al-Sadaqa, Khidmat al-Shati, and al-Zeitoun clubs, was targeted while at a cafe.

Malak Musleh, Palestine’s youngest promising boxer at just 15 years old, was killed alongside family members in an airstrike on Gaza’s shoreline.

Ismail Abu Dan, 37, a key player for al-Tuffah Sports Club, was also lost, followed shortly by his teammate Sami Al-Hilu in a subsequent strike.

Ahmed Ali Salah, a player at al-Khadr Professional Academy who was preparing to join a new club, had his life cut short by Israeli bombardment.

Imad Youssef al-Hawajri, a well-known handball player, and Imad al-Abd al-Fayyumi, a former star of al-Shuja’iya, were both killed in direct strikes on their homes.

Likewise, Iman Muhammad Harz, a young member of the Peace Scouts and Guides, was found dead beneath the rubble of her home.

Ahmad Bakhit, a young boxer who competed in local tournaments, was killed alongside his brother in an airstrike.

Muhammad Omar Abdullah Abu Abdo, another handball player whose career was cut short by bloodshed, and Asaad Abu Shawqa, vice president of the Palestinian Karate Federation, who died in a strike that hit a residential building in central Gaza, were also among the victims.

72 Football Teams

Despite the horrific bloodshed in Gaza, where Palestinian sport is being subjected to a systematic campaign of extermination targeting both people and facilities, international sports federations, including football’s global governing body, FIFA, have maintained a troubling silence unbefitting institutions that claim to uphold “human values and the spirit of sport.”

According to the Palestinian Olympic Committee, by early July 2025, the death toll within the Palestinian sporting community had surpassed 800 since October 7, 2023.

Among the dead were 418 members of the Palestinian Football Association, equivalent to the full lineup of 72 football teams, a staggering figure that lays bare the scale of the catastrophe facing Palestinian sport under relentless bombardment.

And the toll does not end with the dead. At least 30 athletes have been wounded, 26 others detained, and vast swaths of sports infrastructure, obliterated, with clubs, stadiums, and training facilities reduced to rubble across Gaza and the West Bank.

The list of the dead also includes 243 individuals affiliated with the Palestinian Olympic Committee, 117 scouts, and more than 35 female athletes, many of them teenagers, their promise extinguished before it had the chance to bloom.

The majority of those killed fall within the 6 to 20 age bracket, followed by those aged 20 to 30, a devastating blow to the lifeblood of Palestine’s youth and future athletic talent.

And yet, while the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes, FIFA has remained conspicuously silent, refusing to issue even a symbolic suspension of the Israeli Football Association.

It is a glaring double standard, especially when set against the suspension of Russia’s Football Union in response to the war in Ukraine, proof that political calculations drive the decisions of global sports bodies, often at the expense of the rights of oppressed peoples.

Mohammad Al-Amsi, assistant secretary-general of the local Olympic Committee and a member of the executive office of the Palestinian Football Association, wrote on Facebook, “What is happening today to Palestinian sport defies imagination and exposes the hollowness of many international slogans about justice and equality within the global system.”

Destruction of Stadiums

“Israel’s” war has not only claimed the lives of Palestinian athletes, but has also devastated the very infrastructure of Palestinian sport.

In a statement issued on 29 January 2025, the Palestinian Olympic Committee revealed that Israeli Occupation Forces had targeted no fewer than 287 sports facilities in Gaza and the West Bank during the ongoing war.

Among the destroyed sites were official headquarters, football fields, and indoor arenas, including the Palestinian Olympic Committee’s own headquarters.

Also leveled was the Gaza office of the Palestinian Football Association, along with dozens of sports clubs, gymnasiums, and school playgrounds.

In one of the documented attacks, Gaza’s municipality announced on January 7, 2024, that Yarmouk Stadium, one of the city’s most prominent sporting venues, had been deliberately bombed, bulldozed, and destroyed by Israeli Occupation Forces during a ground invasion of the area.

The municipality reported that Israeli troops had transformed the stadium into a makeshift detention center, using it to hold civilians who had taken shelter there after their homes were bombed, believing the stadium might offer them safety.

According to the same statement, the Israeli Occupation Forces razed the grandstands, shelled storage rooms filled with sports equipment, tore up the running track, and set fire to the stadium’s lighting systems and synthetic turf.

The scene bore all the hallmarks of a deliberate effort to erase any semblance of civilian and cultural life in the besieged strip.

In its statement, the municipality urged the international community and regional and global sporting bodies to urgently intervene, both to condemn the systematic targeting of sports infrastructure and to assist in rebuilding what has been destroyed. 

Without such support, it warned, Palestinian sporting life faces the very real threat of complete annihilation.

They Are Not Numbers!

Palestinian activist Jamal Hassasneh sees the targeting of Palestinian athletes not as random violence, but as part of a systematic Israeli policy aimed at stripping Palestinian society of its living symbols and sources of soft power.

Hassasneh told Al-Estiklal, “The Palestinian athlete is more than just a player; they carry the Palestinian flag in arenas beyond the reach of tanks. Every time the national anthem rises on an international stage, the occupation feels its fabricated identity tremble.”

“That’s why the killing of athletes is not the result of random shelling, but part of a comprehensive project to destroy everything that keeps Palestine alive: education, media, culture, and sport,” he added.

Hassasneh criticized what he called the “blatant silence” of international sporting bodies, led by the International Olympic Committee and FIFA.

“We are facing a crime documented in both audio and visual evidence,” he said, “yet it is not enough to stir the conscience of these institutions.”

“This silence is no longer mere neglect but open complicity, reflecting double standards and a complete absence of basic justice,” he added. 

Citing a statement from the Palestinian Olympic Committee, he recalled the painful words used to describe the fallen athletes, “They are not just numbers; each martyr was a story of ambition, a journey of dreams. They were preparing for one last race toward hope, but the bombs beat them to it.”