They cross the football field in a blur of red, white, black and green, the colors of their jerseys echoing the Palestinian flags flying in the stands.
But the Club Deportivo Palestino players are almost as far from Palestine as possible.
Located more than 13,000 kilometers (8,200 miles) away, the football club calls La Cisterna, a suburb of Santiago, Chile, home – a sign of the unique role this South American country plays in the Palestinian diaspora.
Chile is home to the largest Palestinian population outside the Middle East, with approximately 500,000 citizens of Palestinian origin. And as the latest war in Gaza unfolds, the growing death toll hits close to home for many Chileans, for whom Palestinian culture is ingrained in daily life.
“We are all the subjects of this story,” Chilean rapper and musician Ana Tijoux told Al Jazeera, as she reflected on the ongoing war. “We all need to stand up.”
The conflict began on October 7, when the armed group Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing 1,400 people and capturing hundreds more.
Since then, Israel has carried out a bombing campaign against Gaza, the narrow Palestinian territory home to around 2.3 million inhabitants. Supplies have been cut off. Hospitals closed their doors. And more than 10,000 Palestinians died in the explosions, with nowhere to go to safety.
Latin Grammy winner Tijoux took part in one of the largest pro-Palestinian rallies ever held in the country, a concert aimed at raising funds for remaining hospitals in Gaza and the West Bank.
The history of violence and displacement that Palestinians have faced resonates with Tijoux, who has indigenous roots in Chile.
One of the best-selling Spanish-speaking rappers of all time, Tijoux even collaborated with British Palestinian artist Shadia Mansour, with whom she released an Arab-Spanish protest anthem, Somos Sur in 2014.
“Why does what is happening in Palestine affect us? It has to do with colonization, genocide, racism and ethnic cleansing. The same patterns of imperialism are repeated,” Tijoux said.
These patterns have partly shaped the large Palestinian diaspora in Chile. Three waves of migration have occurred since the end of the 19th century, according to Ricardo Marzuco, a professor at the Center for Arab Studies at the University of Chile.
The first came with the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the late 1800s, as Palestinian merchants sought opportunities in Latin America. After the collapse of the empire, in the interwar period, a second surge occurred.
Then another major exodus began in 1948, when the State of Israel was formed and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced, in an event they call the Nakba or “catastrophe.”
Due to the economic losses, instability, and political persecution they faced, many Palestinians traveled to the Americas to seek opportunities in emerging economies.
“It was the idea of the American dream,” Marzuco said.
Each successive generation that arrived in Chile created opportunities for others to follow, he added.
“This is linked to the Arab concept of extended family, the deep feeling of hospitality and solidarity,” Marzuco said. “The first ones who arrived and prospered invited relatives to work in their businesses, thus consolidating themselves into a significant community. »
A second-generation Palestinian Chilean, Marzuco said many Palestinians are also drawn to Chile for its mild coastal climate, similar to the Mediterranean environment of their home country.
“They have adapted well to Chile,” Marcuzo said. “There was an affinity with the weather, the environment and certain elements belonging to the Chilean landscape.”
These first waves of Palestinian arrivals, however, encountered xenophobia and racism in Chile. They were often grouped with other Arab immigrants as “Turcos” or “Turks”, a term that came to have a derogatory meaning.
But today, Chileans of Palestinian origin are represented in some of the highest government positions. Among them are current mayor and former presidential candidate Daniel Jadue and Senator Francisco Javier Chahuán, politicians from opposite sides of the political spectrum. One is a communist, the other right-wing.
“Solidarity with Palestine is expressed across all political sectors,” Marzuco said.
Football has also served as a way to foster acceptance, according to Diego Khamis, executive director of the Palestinian Community of Chile, an umbrella organization that represents different Palestinian groups and businesses across the country.
Khamis is a loyal supporter of Club Deportivo Palestino, a team founded by Palestinian immigrants in the 1920s.
“They thought one of the best ways to make Palestine visible was to create a professional football club, so that ‘Palestine’ would appear in the newspapers at least once a week,” Khamis explained.
The team is part of the Palestinian community in Chile. Since 1947, it has participated in professional leagues and is regularly among the main contenders in Chile’s Primera División, the country’s premier league.
This gives him a platform to associate Palestinian activism with football fans, making slogans like “Free Palestine” part of the daily lives of his legions of supporters.
“At a time when the world was saying that Palestinians did not exist, in Chile we knew that was the case. How can we say that something doesn’t exist when it is so present here? » said Khamis.
The visibility of Chile’s Palestinian community has in turn shaped the country’s foreign policy, particularly in recent weeks.
Chilean President Gabriel Boric has repeatedly expressed support for Palestinian human rights since his inauguration in 2022, even withdrawing the country’s ambassador to Israel to condemn the ongoing military offensive in Gaza.
“They were among the first to take diplomatic steps to protest what is happening,” Khamis said of Boric and his government.
Agustina Manzur, a 24-year-old makeup artist, was surprised by the amount of support provided since the start of the war.
A fourth-generation Chilean of Palestinian origin, she recently attended a protest in front of the Israeli embassy in Santiago, Chile.
Dressed in her keffiyeh – a traditional Palestinian headscarf – and carrying a Palestinian flag, she arrived early. She was stunned to see the number of protesters already there.
Hundreds of people gathered in front of the embassy. The crowd grew so large that protesters spilled off the sidewalk and onto the busy road, cutting off traffic.
“It was heartwarming to see so many of us fighting for the same cause,” Manzur said. Lately, his social media has been flooded with the devastation caused by Israeli attacks. ” I could not sleep. It completely consumed me.
But she has found hope among members of Chile’s large Palestinian community and its supporters, all of whom are raising their voices against the war. She plans to demonstrate again soon.
“We must speak because the people of Gaza cannot. They don’t even have access to the internet, electricity or water,” Manzur said. “We can’t physically get the Palestinians out, so the least we can do is protest for them. »
