Football returns to the field in Gaza, scarred by war and loss

On a worn five-a-side pitch in a wasteland of destroyed buildings and rubble, Jabalia Youth took on Al-Sadaqa in the Gaza Strip’s first organized football tournament in more than two years.

The match ended in a draw, as did a second match with Beit Hanoun and Al-Shujaiya. But the spectators were hardly disappointed; they cheered and shook the fence next to the Palestine field in the ruins of the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City.

Boys climbed over a broken concrete wall or peered through holes in the ruins to take a look. Someone was beating a drum.

Youssef Jendiya, 21, one of the Jabalia Youth players from a part of Gaza largely depopulated and bulldozed by Israeli forces, described his feeling when he was back on the field: «Confused. Happy, sad, happy, happy.»

«People look for water in the morning: food, bread. Life is a bit difficult. But there is still a little bit left of the day, when you can come and play football and express some of the joy within yourself,» he said.

«You come to the stadium and miss many of your teammates… killed, injured or those who have traveled for treatment. So the joy is incomplete.»

Four months since a ceasefire ended major fighting in Gaza, virtually no reconstruction has taken place. Israeli forces have chased all residents from nearly two-thirds of the strip, trapping more than two million people in ruins along the coast, most of them in makeshift tents or damaged buildings.

The former site of the 9,000-seat Yarmouk Stadium, which was razed by Israeli forces during the war and used as a detention center, now houses displaced families in white tents, packed into the brown earth of what was once the sports field hgtgdfgdtr8.

Before this week’s tournament, the Football Association managed to clear the rubble from a collapsed wall of a half-sized field, install a fence and sweep the rubble from the old artificial grass.

By coming out, the teams “delivered a message,” said Beit Hanoun player Amjad Abu Awda, 31. «That whatever has happened in terms of destruction and genocidal war, we continue to play and to live. Life must go on.»

Published on February 10, 2026