In Gaza, Playing “the Beautiful Game” Amidst Slaughter

Breaking the Sound Barrier by Amy Goodman

Israel struck just outside a school in Gaza on Tuesday, killing at least 29 people sheltering there and injuring dozens more. The moment the bomb exploded was captured on video by someone recording a youth soccer game in the Al-Awda school courtyard. The soccer ball was midair when the bomb exploded. The New York Times, using Reuters footage, identified the munition as a 250-pound GBU-39 guided bomb, manufactured by Boeing and supplied by the United States. The video, broadcast by Al Jazeera, captured the chaos following the explosion and the carnage outside the school, with dead bodies and injured people bleeding on the ground, unattended amidst the rubble. Attack survivor Asmaa Qudeih recounted the horror: “We were sitting safely in the afternoon, somewhat settled. Suddenly, a missile was fired…The schools were overcrowded with people, and the street was full, too. Suddenly, a missile hit and destroyed the whole place. There were bodies and body parts. Bodies flew. Body parts flew in the air. I don’t know how to describe it. I can’t.” In addition to those at the soccer game, many others were reportedly clustered around a wifi hotspot, accessing the internet. Seeking connection to the outside world while trapped in the besieged ghetto of Gaza, they were annihilated. The Al-Awda school massacre, as it has become known, occurred as Israel’s assault on Gaza enters its tenth month, and almost ten years to the day since four young boys in Gaza were killed by an Israeli bomb while they played soccer on the beach, on July 16th, 2014. Tyler Hicks, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist with the New York Times, witnessed that attack. He described it, speaking on the Democracy Now! news hour: “My hotel room overlooks the beach…I heard a loud explosion, a big crack right outside the window. I immediately looked outside…I could just see one child running away from that into the open sand. I knew that there was a strong possibility that there would be injuries or even deaths because of this, and I quickly started to grab my cameras, my protective flak jacket, when another second explosion happened outside about 30 seconds after the first one. When I looked back out, that very boy that I had seen running was then lifeless, killed on the beach in the open, and along with three other boys who were playing with him.” Ayman Mohyeldin, today an MSNBC anchor, also witnessed the killing of the boys. He said he had been kicking a soccer ball with them just moments before. NBC responded to Ayman’s compelling reporting on the attack by pulling him out of Gaza. In May, Gaza native Badr Alzaharna published an essay on the website of The International Platform on Sport and Development, about the importance in Gaza of soccer, or football as it is known everywhere outside the United States. “For Gaza’s young and old, football is more than just a game. It has long been a beacon of unity, peace, and hope for thousands of people in Gaza, transcending the protracted struggles we face. Just like fans around the world, we are dedicated followers of the most ‘beautiful game,’ cheering on our favorite teams and players,” Badr wrote. He invoked the phrase “The Beautiful Game,” popularized by the late, great Brazilian soccer legend, Pelé, “Playing football was not merely a pastime, but a lifeline for thousands of youth, providing solace amidst chaos, friendships in loneliness, relief in the face of anxiety, and always a goal to look forward to…Football was an interlude to the pain, a brief distraction from the sounds of bombardment stuck in our heads from previous wars.” Half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million Palestinians is under the age of 18. Those born in 2006 or after have lived their entire lives under Israel’s brutal siege of Gaza, described as the worlds’ largest open-air prison. While the World Court deliberates on South Africa’s charge that Israel is perpetrating a genocide in Gaza, those million or so children trapped under Israel’s constant bombardment need food, water, education, and, yes, the recreation and community afforded by activities like soccer. Most of them have known only scarcity, occupation and war throughout their short lives. This week, as Gaza ceasefire talks drag on in Doha, Qatar, Israel ordered the complete evacuation of Gaza City, which Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem called “absolute madness,” adding, “based on Israel’s actions, it appears that it intends to continue fighting indefinitely, sowing destruction, and killing masses of people for the foreseeable future.” As the Olympic Torch arrives in Paris later this month to open the Summer Games, let’s remember the flames outside the soccer pitch at the Al-Awda School in Khan Younis, and the children playing the Beautiful Game in Gaza, amidst the ugliness of war.