By Mark Baber
August 10 – Sunday’s second leg of the historic cup final between Al-Ahly, the top team in the West Bank and Gaza’s champion Shejaia was called off by the Palestinian Football Federation on Friday as Israel denied entry permits to seven of the Gaza party, including four players, whom it demanded be subjected to questioning.
The restrictions on Palestinian football became a major issue at FIFA’s annual congress in May, with Palestine eventually withdrawing a demand to expel Israel over the issue in return for a promise by Israel to loosen the restrictions and for the formation of a FIFA committee to monitor the freedom of movement of Palestinian players.
The Shejaia club from the Gaza Strip needed to pass through an Israeli border crossing in order to reach the occupied West Bank city of Hebron where the game was to take place.
With the first leg having been hailed as an historic milestone for Palestinian football, and Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu having hailed the May agreement as having “proved our international efforts paid off and brought about the failure of the Palestinian Authority’s attempt to expel us from FIFA,” it was perhaps unsurprising that the Israeli authorities returned to political brinkmanship over the issue of Palestinian players’ freedom of movement.
Israeli border affairs spokeswoman Hadar Horen claimed 33 of 37 players had been given permission to cross from Gaza into the West Bank but Israeli authorities wanted to ask further “questions” of the remaining four who were “invited” for screening on both Thursday and Friday.
According to Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories the no-show of the invitees and the team’s decision not to cross was “another cheap provocation” by the chairman of the Palestinian FA, Jibril Al-Rajoub.
Abdel-Salam Haniyeh of the Palestinian Higher Council of Sport claimed that: “As always the Israeli occupation wanted to spoil our happiness.”
Whichever team wins the title is scheduled to play in the next Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Cup, but it remains to be seen if FIFA can persuade the Israelis to allow Palestinian players freedom of movement in the face of Israeli claims of security concerns.
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