First Person: Football dream alive in Gaza despite ‘constant fire’
A young Gazan footballer who says he feels like he is “dying every day,” is trying to keep his dream alive of one day playing the game professionally, despite living “under constant fire.’
Mohamed Abu Jalda who is currently living in a camp for displaced people after fleeing his home, practices on the beach in the Al-Mawasi area of Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip.
He spoke to UN News’s Ziad Taleb.
“I am Mohamed Abu Jalda, a player for the Rafah Services Club a football team in the first division in Gaza.
UN News/Ziad Taleb
Mohamed Abu Jalda, plays for the Rafah Services Football Club.
I had a big ambition to become a great football player like others outside the Gaza Strip, but because of the war, my ambition and my life were delayed. I’m now 20 years old, trying to become a professional, but I can’t because I live in Gaza under constant fire.
Every day I feel like I’m dying; may God give us patience to endure this life. I am from Rafah, but I now live in the Shaboura camp for displaced people in the Al-Mawasi area of Rafah.
It’s been five months since I was moved there.
Whenever I find some free time and feel like playing football, I head to the beach, the only place where I can play.
© UNICEF/Eyad El Baba
The bombing continues in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
We were displaced and no one came to look for us. I want my voice to reach the world.
My dream and ambition is to play football. I’ve had this ambition since I was 10 years old, but now I’m over 20, and I see nothing because I live in Gaza under this oppression.
‘What makes me different?’
Why can’t I become a football player? What makes me different from anyone else in the world? I have ears like them, a nose like them, and feet like them; there is nothing different.
Because of the war, no opportunities have come my way. Before the war, I was physically fit, but now things have changed due to the displacement we are living through.
I try to train every three days on the beach to fulfill my ambition and hope that my voice reaches the world, because I have the right to become a professional footballer as much as anyone else.
I hope that God grants me success to become a football player.
I am proud to be from Gaza and I hope to play for the Palestinian national team, because this is my right.
Let them test me, and I will show all the skills I have in football.”
