Displaced Gazans hold a soccer tournament at an UNRWA school
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STORY: :: Displaced Palestinians organize a two-day soccer tournament at an UNRWA school :: as the world gears up for the 2024 Paris Olympics :: Jabalia, Gaza :: July 24, 2024 :: Ahmed Abu Seif, Displaced Palestinian “All our stadiums were destroyed, all our clubs were destroyed. You see the football that we are playing with, a very old ball in the shelter. The shelters have been destroyed. The occupation left nothing, but destroyed it. The trees, the stones, the birds. The occupation left nothing but destroyed it.” “We succeeded in bringing about these games because the Olympics take place all over the world, and are taking place now in France, and the whole world is watching them and excited about it. And I wish the world would look at us, in the Gaza Strip, which has been oppressed. They should look at us and realize that our most basic rights in sports, which is football, we love it and we practice it and it is our hobby, and we are a people who love peace.” Standing outside their tents and balconies, displaced families and their children watched and cheered as the teams competed. The Israel-Gaza war began when Hamas-led Palestinian Islamist militants stormed into southern Israel from Gaza on October 7, killing more than 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Israel retaliated by vowing to eradicate Hamas in Gaza in a nine-month war that has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians, Gaza health officials say, and reduced most of the tiny besieged enclave to wasteland.
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