Members of the Palestinian national team speak to The 42 about the daily trauma of life in Gaza and the West Bank.
Gavin Cooney THE MAJED ASAD Stadium in Palestine ’s West Bank was officially opened by former French international Lilian Thuram in 2011, but a more consequential figure was the friendly security guard who quietly left a gate unlocked.
Both were talented footballers. Deema would play at senior international level for the Palestine women’s team, while Mohammad was on the verge of going professional with a club in the West Bank. Mohammad Al-Qatri was killed on 8 August 2014. Nobody has been held accountable for his death. Ahmad Abdelrazek, then the Ambassador of the State of Palestine to Ireland, raised Mohammadd’s story less than a month later in an address to a Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs.“There is a collective feeling of guilt within the Palestinian community. Just being alive and having your family around you is a blessing. We don’t see it as a human right anymore.
Advertisement She adds: “It is not polite in our culture to whine and complain that ‘I can’t play anymore’, because others have lost their limbs and others have lost their lives and others have been in prison for so long. You think, ‘Okay, keep it to yourself and try to figure it out yourself’.” And though Deema has retired from playing, she will be part of the travelling party in her new role as managing-director, in which she oversees logistics; a difficult job in the West Bank.
“Life in general in Palestine teaches you that you have to be patient”, says Mira Natour, another current Palestine international. “We are resilient individuals who are full of patience. We are full of patience to play, full of patience to represent Palestine.” “For them, it’s a Palestinian, it does not matter,” says Deema. “If you are a doctor or a teacher or a football player, it does not matter. If you’re a child or elderly, it does not matter. They do not care. For them, you are a Palestinian, you hold this ID: I am going to make your life as miserable as possible.”
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