In Palestine, rocks become goalposts and football becomes freedom

Two stones, sometimes shoes, are placed on either side of a road to score a goal. A handful of children gather around it, form teams and play football. Soldiers of the ‘occupation’ often take to the streets and order them to return home.

If they leave, the match will resume. In Palestine this is how footballers are built. Mohammed Rashid is one of them. The Palestinian midfielder, best known in India as the most reliable custodian of East Bengal’s midfield, may have left the country in his teens but he remembers his childhood like it was yesterday.

“In Palestine there are not many resources to become a professional footballer. So when you come across an empty parking lot or street as a child, you just play for fun,” he says. Sports stars.

«My parents had a hard time getting me in because I loved being outside all the time. Often we would have to deal with problems with the Israeli soldiers. We would play in the street and one of their cars would come by and (ask us) to just go home and stuff. This was normal.»

Rashid didn’t give up. After being scouted by his physical education teacher in Class VI, he would move to the United States of America at the age of 16, obtain a degree in Business Psychology, continue playing alongside his studies and then choose football as his full-time profession.

«We play for the people who have lost their homes, their wives, husbands, fathers, their loved ones. When you keep that in mind, in your mental state, as you go out on the field, you get really excited because you start to believe that we are not just living for ourselves. Other people are counting on us,» says Rashid.

The conflict between Israel and Palestine has seriously deteriorated since October 2023, affecting nearly a million people. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 72,619 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip and another 172,484 injured between October 7, 2023 and May 6, 2026.

The victims include former athletes such as Mohammed Shaalan – a former national team basketball player who was reportedly killed while looking for food for his daughter – and Suleiman Obeid, a former national football team star who was known as ‘Palestinian first’.

«In Gaza, a lot of people watch the national team games. They find ways to get access to the Internet, despite the war and everything, to watch the games. I have friends from there who send me pictures and videos of people actually putting a phone on the wall and hanging it on the wall. And there are maybe 30, 40 people just watching. Imagine how hard that is, and it really gives you goosebumps. It gives you something more to strive for – other than clearly want to win – to make those people happy.”

Although Rashid left Palestine fifteen years ago, his bond with his homeland has never weakened. Last year, that bond suffered a devastating blow when his father, Al-Hajj Basim Ahmad Rashid Hmidan, passed away.

«It was very difficult. When my father passed away, it was unexpected. That same morning he was laughing, joking and just being himself. I was in training when it happened. I had about 100 missed calls from my siblings. I had never seen it before and I was shocked (by the news that followed),» says Rashid.

Returning to the US, where his immediate family live, Rashid took time to grieve and absorb the change before returning to India. But the 30-year-old could never get past the death of his father, Basim. So when he was blessed with a boy earlier this year, he couldn’t think of a better name.

“I just wanted my father’s name to always be with me, and because I also live far from home, so it’s good to always call him Basim,” says Rashid, then pauses to look at an unimportant object and think, before getting back into the conversation.

“At the end of the day, when you accept it (his father’s death), you just say, thank God, alhamdulillah, one day we will all be there,” he adds.

On the field, Rashid is a solid professional, excelling for both club and country. He played two AFC Asian Cups for Palestine and was part of the squad that qualified for the first round of 16 in Qatar two years ago.

“I hope that one day when it is free, fully, or at least we can move freely in it, I am alive. I just pray to God that I am, because I really want to see everything in the country,” he says.

As of December 2025, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs documented 925 barriers to movement that permanently or intermittently restrict the movement of 3.4 million Palestinians in the West Bank – an increase of 43 percent over the annual average over the previous two decades.

“As an Indian you would like to go everywhere here because you have the freedom there. But we don’t do that there,” Rashid adds.

Rashid has come a long way since he kicked a ball around in Ramallah. He made 50 appearances for his country and traveled to different parts of the world as a player.

Every time he steps onto the field, Palestine walks with him – the streets where children play with stones as goalposts.

“I look up to them (the people of Palestine) for their patience and faith – something I want to achieve at some point in my life. I don’t know how a human can sustain this for three years: minimal food, minimal water. The smallest bits of survival are not even there,” he says.

«To be in that state, in that situation and to be able to survive, honestly, they are the real heroes. Inshallah, I really pray and hope that the day comes soon when we are all free.»

Published on May 17, 2026