The return of Palestinian football: ‘We are a people who must live’

Bethlehem, occupied West Bank – The floodlights came on at al-Khader Stadium, and for a few hours, the scene looked almost ordinary.

Young men sang from the stands as families settled into their seats and children ran along the front row. On the pitch, the Arab Orthodox Beit Jala and Dheisheh Youth football teams warmed up.

Then the whistle blew. The teams traded chances as fans cheered, groaned and shouted at the referee. It was the first organised competition Palestinian clubs had played in nearly three years.

People began rising from their seats to see what was happening. From the pitch, Beit Jala’s 20-year-old Cesar Sarras watched the crowd turn towards the noise.

“I was afraid when I saw all the fans getting up,” he told Al Jazeera.  “Sometimes I hear about tear gas being fired at the field. I haven’t witnessed it, but I hear about it a lot… I thought, this must be the [Israeli] army.”

This time, it was not a military raid, but a squabble between supporters. The crowd settled back into their seats, and the match resumed. For the rest of the night, fans’ attention returned to the game.

“It makes us feel that we have something a little bit normal, like people abroad,” said Rimas Sarhan, 15, from Aida refugee camp, who plays for the Aod Sports Academy and the national youth team. A full stadium, she said, is “a very beautiful feeling”.

The match was part of the Thousand Martyrs Cup, named after 1,014 athletes killed since October 2023, when Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and intensifying attacks on the West Bank brought Palestinian football to a halt. It is seen as part of a staggered reintroduction of competitive football back to Palestine after a long delay.