While football referees around the world prepare to participate in international tournaments and others train on the latest electronic refereeing systems, Gaza’s referees have had to fight a different kind of battle. Instead, they’ve been embroiled in a battle for survival under Israeli bombardment that did not distinguish between players on a football pitch, a house, or a child carrying a piece of bread.

Over the past two years, during Israel’s devastating war on the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian sporting community has lost some of its elite referees. They have been martyred in the bombardment, while others have been injured and left with physical disabilities that forcibly ended their careers. Five referees lost their lives, and seven others suffered varying injuries. Some referees have had their legs amputated, while others were paralysed or suffered deep wounds. However, they all share one fate: they are denied the opportunity to return to the field.

Football in Gaza a thing of the past

Among the martyrs is international assistant referee Mohammed Khattab. He was considered one of the most prominent referees in Gaza. Months before his martyrdom, he refereed matches in the West Asian Youth Championship in Jordan and dreamed of reaching the Asian Cup for adults.

But that dream was shattered in a single night when Israeli shelling targeted his apartment in Deir al-Balah, killing him and his entire family. His whistle, which used to set the pace of the matches, fell silent under the rubble, and the world did not hear that silence.

His colleague Hani Masmouh, an international beach soccer referee, followed him a few days later. Hani suffered a serious abdominal injury, and with his death there went the legacy of one of the most prominent referees who raised the name of Palestine in football.

As for the three referees, Rashid Hamdouna, Omar Al-Kilani, and Mohammed Darabi, all have refused to leave northern Gaza despite warnings, clinging to their homes and families. Their fate was also martyrdom, like many of the people of the Strip who found no safe place to take refuge.

Injuries end the journey… and dreams remain unfulfilled

The pain did not end with martyrdom. Referee Ramadan Sabra was seriously injured, resulting in the amputation of his left foot, after an Israeli air strike targeted the area where he lived.

In a scene no less cruel, referee Mohammed Al-Najjar lies paralysed from the waist down, waiting for an opportunity to cross the Rafah crossing to receive treatment outside the Strip.

Referee Islam al-Shukrit is receiving treatment in Egypt after suffering multiple fractures, while Mahmoud Abu Hasira is living with the consequences of serious injuries he sustained during a bombing that targeted his home, leading him to decide to retire from refereeing permanently after having been one of the most prominent up-and-coming referees in Gaza.

Referee Khaled Bader lost his eldest son in a bombing that targeted the area where he was, and he himself suffered various injuries that made it difficult for him to return to the field. As for the young Hazem Al-Sufi, he was pulled from the rubble three days after losing consciousness, returning to life with a broken body and a soul still searching for its lost whistle.

The game the world lost

What happened is not just a local tragedy, but a global loss for a sport in which Palestinians had made a respectable showing despite the blockade and limited resources.

Gaza used to produce talented referees who represented Palestine in Arab and Asian championships and trained new generations of young referees. But the war destroyed the sports infrastructure, halted training programmes, and turned Gaza’s stadiums into grey arenas where only the sirens of ambulances can be heard.

Despite all this, there are still those who cling to hope. The referees who survived sometimes gather in destroyed stadiums, sharing stories of their martyred colleagues and dreaming of the day when the sound of the whistle will return to the stands of Gaza.

One of them told them the Canary:

We may have lost our stadiums, uniforms and international badges, but we have not lost the justice we dreamed of. We will teach our children how the whistle is a symbol of life, not silence.

When justice is bombed

In sport, the referee’s whistle represents a moment of justice on the pitch, but in Gaza, justice itself has been bombed.

The targeting of referees was no accident, but part of a systematic attempt to kill everything that symbolises order, fairness, and the human dream.

Nevertheless, the whistle of football in Gaza is not dead; its echoes still reverberate in every home that has lost a referee and in every stadium that awaits their return, telling the world that sport is not a luxury in Palestine, but a form of resistance.

Featured image via Unsplash/Catia Climovich

By Alaa Shamali

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