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Sheikh Jarrah, Captured East Jerusalem It has been three years since Mahdi Hijazi last played football, and the war against Gaza has made the Palestinian league difficult.
The 23-year-old now lives on the sidelines of several soccer games near Israel’s police headquarters. Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem. Place it has faced the expulsion of Palestinian families by Israeli authorities over the years, only to be replaced by Israel.
Hijazi, who played for the Palestinian national team and went abroad with Hilal Al-Quds, the most decorated club in Jerusalem, is seen offering refreshments to the players, eager to stick to the game they love at all costs.
“Football is in our blood. Winning, losing – football is beautiful, it’s life… we breathe football,” he told Al Jazeera. “For three years, there hasn’t been a game. Things are difficult, you stay focused in training… What we want to do is to get back to football.”
Hilal Al-Quds has been a part of Hijazi’s life since birth. His grandfather founded the club, and he rode it as a teenager to compete in the first team, playing games in Asia.
But the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023 – and the massacre in Gaza – changed everything.
No one knows if the Palestinian Professional League – suspended since the start of the Gaza war – will return, putting the future of Palestinian football in jeopardy.
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Palestinian soccer teams are often linked together from players in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, but Israeli military attacks in the occupied territories have made that travel more difficult. Officials say increased hostilities and the closure of West Bank roads by Israeli forces, which have been used to drive Palestinian players from one game to another, have made home games difficult to play.
For Palestinian players, the suspension of the Palestine Professional League has been a nightmare. Khaled Abu Dalu, 36, a former national team player, has been running a youth academy in Jerusalem for the past decade, and many of his players are going on to compete.
A professional league soccer player in the past could earn $2,000 to $3,000 a month, while national team players could make up to $7,000.
“Some of my former players who were players, all of them, are now unemployed, doing menial jobs. Nothing can do justice to his work,” said coach Abu Dalu.
Hijazi said that the suspension of the professional domestic league has caused many top players to leave football and take any job they can find.
“The money was good (but) today it’s gone, many of your friends have started construction work – one became a barber, another a mechanic, another in a shop, another a baker,” said Hijazi. “As footballers, at the end of the month, we knew that the salary was coming, (but) now, there are people who are married, who have children, who have no money. “
Hijazi himself has found a new life in buying and selling cars, but there are other challenges facing players and supporters beyond the league suspension. West Bank players who do not have a move that leads to a Jerusalem ID, or a permit to work inside Israel, will suffer greatly.
Mustafa Owais, 35, a former football player before the war, told the sad story of his old friend from Bethlehem, where a large part of the state is controlled by Israel.
“His only job was football (but) after the war, he started working two days a week in the West Bank – every week he makes 100 ($34.24) or 200 shekels ($68.47), and he got married, he has children, a family,” Owais told Al-Jazeera.
An old friend who used to earn $5,000 a month playing football now spends $500, he said.
‘Man wants to do what he likes’
Some players, who want the opportunity to play football and support their families, made the difficult decision to join clubs in the Israeli Premier League.
“At the end of the day, one wants to do what one likes, regardless of our political views… so, they go to the Israeli league, until the Palestinian league returns,” coach Abu Dalu said.
Abdul Fatah Arar, a veteran coach who has won several Palestinian league titles and managed Palestinian powerhouse Taraji Wadi Al-Nes, a club near Bethlehem, made a list of local players who over the years have been looking for opportunities abroad.
It is said that 70 to 80 players have gone to play in Libya, about 10 in Egypt, half a dozen in Jordan, and a few in Qatar, Kuwait, Malaysia and Indonesia. Those countries classify the Palestinians as local rather than foreign players, making them cheaper to sign. “Some players are not lucky, so they miss out,” he said.
Hijazi said that even when players find an overseas team to play with, the transition is not always easy.
“A player who has been abroad for a long time – this is different. He has to return to the league, regain interest in the game, and then think about going abroad,” he said.
One of Hijazi’s former colleagues in Hilal Al-Quds moved to Libya with difficulty after the birth of her first child shortly after on October 7, 2023. After a long time away from work, she finally joined a group in Libya, but finding it too dangerous to leave her home in Tripoli at night, she returned to Palestine.
For women, more fall
The women’s national team also managed to form a team and give Palestinian players the hope of competing internationally.
In April 2025, a small Palestinian home team defeated Jordan in the final of the West Asian Football Federation (WAFF) Women’s Championship, lifting the title for the first time.
Laila Atamneh, 18, from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina who is also a member of the Women’s Under-20 National Team, said the players should remember those who are playing: “In Gaza there are people who love you. It gave us a spirit that was not there before.”
“This war may be a curse in many ways, but I feel like it brought out the best version of the national team,” he said.
However, the Palestinian clubs where she played in the past disappeared due to the crisis and she does not know of any women of her age who are still playing in Jerusalem.
He said: “When you see that what you’re doing has no purpose, it’s hard to keep going. It all comes back to education, without it, you’re not going anywhere.”
A generation to sneak away
The longer the West Bank Premier League is suspended, the worse it is – especially for the younger players who have to start replacing the existing champions.
“A generation is lost every year,” said Khalil Hamed, a former player who is now a coach at Abu Dalu’s football school. “The next generation is passing away. Take those who are 18 today: two years ago, they should already be in the first team, the star of the team, today, they have stopped.”
Abdul Fatah Arar, who has helped develop the West Bank Premier League since its inception in 2008, said none of the young players he is coaching in 2023 are still playing football.
“They grew up. Some of them disappeared – I don’t even know if they are working in Israel.” Three years, four years – in football, that’s a generation, “said Arar. “It’s time from World Cup to World Cup.”
After the summer break, Arar hopes the minor leagues will emerge. Mustafa Owais says that if football returns, then the players could be paid 500 shekels ($171.18) a month, and possibly no salary at all. However, the clubs have been disrupted since the Palestinian Authority’s funding was frozen by Israel, and the local business sponsors that the clubs used to bankroll have disappeared.
Any revival would be a return to the new trends of 2008. “The game has gone back 20 years – Three years has set us back 20 years,” he said.
Arar is optimistic about the future of Palestinian football. He says the youth academies that have been set up in villages and towns in the West Bank – run by former and former national team players – could be the seeds of the future.
“We cannot say that three years destroyed our work, no. As Palestinians we will not give up,” he said. “We started from zero and we got to the top.”
As the Friday morning training session at the Sheikh Jarrah mini-pitch ended, Owais, Hamed, and several other experts watched a group of boys – no more than 12 years old – running the gym at the Abu Dalu school.
Coach Abu Dalu believes that the first team has ten talented players, but he is worried that if the leagues remain in stasis, the less chance the kids will have of a top player.
“By the age of 18, if there is no chance, he will be like us – he will be a teacher, or he will leave.” he said. He would have gone to Europe, he would have played for every club. God willing, he gets a better opportunity than we have ever seen.
