The Palestinian Football Association (PFA) announced in August that club football would return to Gaza, the West Bank and Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon in September after a three-year-long suspension.

The inaugural tournament was named the Thousand Martyrs' Cup, in honor of the 1,014 athletes, coaches, referees and officials the association said in August had been killed during Israel's war in Gaza. 

The beginning: Football under the British Mandate

The story of Palestinian football begins in 1928, during the British Mandate, when a football association was established in Mandatory Palestine and admitted to FIFA the following year. In those early decades, the association was made up of Arab clubs, Jewish clubs and clubs representing British soldiers and police serving in the region. Arab members eventually left in 1934, citing a lack of representation, and formed a separate Arab Palestine Sports Federation.

When the state of Israel was established in 1948, the original football association became the Israel Football Association. 

A new Palestinian Football Association (PFA), representing Palestinian Arabs, was formed in 1962, but it took decades to gain international recognition. The current Palestinian Football Association joined the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) in 1996 and FIFA in 1998, after the creation of the Palestinian National Authority. That same year, Palestine played their first FIFA-recognized match, losing 3-1 to Lebanon in a friendly.

A team without a home

From the beginning, the Palestinian national team has faced obstacles that no other FIFA member nation encounters. Because Gaza has repeatedly been too dangerous to host international matches, the team plays its home games at Faisal Al-Husseini International Stadium in the town of Al-Ram, north of Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank. 

Players are drawn from across the Palestinian diaspora, from Chile to Sweden to the United States, as well as from within the occupied territories, because Israeli movement restrictions frequently prevent Gaza-based players from reaching training camps or matches at all.

"The restrictions on our movement, the suffocating policies by the Israelis have paralyzed everything," Palestinian Football Association president Jibril Rajoub said in November 2024. "We suspended everything, including the national league, but in spite of this we have insisted on continuing our participation in competitions." 

Despite these conditions, the national team, known as the Lions of Canaan, have achieved moments that transcend sport. 

Palestine won the 2014 AFC Challenge Cup, defeating the Philippines in the final, which qualified them for the 2015 AFC Asian Cup. It was their first appearance in that competition. 

They reached the round of 16 at the 2023 Asian Cup in Qatar, their best ever result, at a tournament that took place just months after Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023. 

Several players in that squad had lost family members in Gaza while competing.

The toll of the war

In Gaza, football was one of the few forms of public life available in a territory under blockade since 2007. The Gaza Strip Premier League operated continuously even through previous conflicts, with clubs like Ittihad Khan Yunis, Khadamat Rafah and Shabab Khan Yunis developing loyal followings across the strip.

Palestine Stadium in Gaza City was the territory's main football venue. During the 2014 conflict it was damaged and used as a shelter for displaced Palestinians. It was damaged again in subsequent rounds of fighting. 

When Israel launched its military offensive on Gaza in October 2023 following the Hamas-led attack on Israel which killed around 1,200 people, Palestinian football collapsed almost immediately. The Palestinian Football Association suspended all competitions.

According to the PFA, over 1,000 members of the sporting community in Gaza have been killed by Israel since October 2023, including players, coaches, referees, administrators and sports workers. The PFA also reported that 265 sports facilities were damaged or completely destroyed by Israeli attacks, including football fields, gyms, club buildings and stadiums.

Among those killed was national team star Suleiman al-Obaid, who died while waiting for humanitarian aid, and Olympic coach Hani al-Masry. A player named Abdel Fattah Abu al-Aish was killed in an Israeli strike just days before the Thousand Martyrs' Cup was due to begin, he had been preparing to compete in the tournament. He is one of more than 560 football players, coaches and staff killed in Gaza since the war began. 

Some of the main stadiums, including Yarmouk Stadium, Palestine Stadium, and Al-Durrah Stadium, have been turned into shelters for displaced families.

'We have not lost our Palestinian national will'

In what remains of Palestine Stadium in Gaza City, players from the club Gaza Al-Irada, its name means 'the will of Gaza,' trained among the ruins, some of them on crutches, having lost limbs during the war. 

In the Jabalia refugee camp, PFA organizers recently cleared piles of concrete rubble, laid down worn artificial turf and erected a fence alongside bombed-out residential structures to create an improvised training ground. On this ground, amputee players resumed training, and local clubs recently faced off in a match. 

The conditions for the Thousand Martyrs' Cup were far from straightforward. An assistant coach told Drop Site News that continued daily Israeli airstrikes and restrictions on movement had forced training sessions to be canceled and made it unclear whether players in Gaza would even be able to show up to the tournament. 

More than 200 clubs registered to compete in the tournament - 146 from the occupied West Bank, 44 from Gaza and 36 from Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. The tournament kicked off simultaneously across all three locations. 

PFA president Jibril Rajoub said the war had "created difficult conditions for all Palestinians that led to the suspension of our competitions and activities.

"We have not lost our Palestinian national will, nor have we lost our belief that sport will remain a symbol of hope and life," he added.