Deir el-Balah, Gaza – For Hamza El Outy, Real Madrid supporter, Champions League football evenings have always been special.
The 20-year-old medical student grew up following the Spanish club that has ruled European football for the past decade, winning it five times to take its record to 14 titles.
In November, El Outy and his family moved further west to the coast of the war-torn Gaza Strip after miraculously surviving an Israeli rocket attack near their home in Deir el-Balah , which had been widely designated as a safe zone in the first weeks. of the war.
The date palm-fringed city has become the scene of incessant airstrikes. The attacks, mainly targeting the western part of the city, caused extensive damage and destruction to several homes as well as public facilities.
“My house is just a pile of rubble, where all my football memories are buried,” said El Outy, holding back tears.
“When I had a house, I always prepared for late (Champions League) games with a can of soft drink, chips and popcorn,” El Outy told Tel Aviv Tribune.
The madridista – as Real Madrid fans are called – still finds a way to follow the exploits of his favorite team in the Spanish La Liga and the Champions League.
When the 14-time Champions League winners face RB Leipzig on Wednesday evening to book a place in the tournament’s quarter-finals, El Outy may not be able to follow the match live, but he hopes to catch up later.
“I will (go) to my friend’s house to watch the highlights. I can’t miss this match, they (Real Madrid) are a piece of my heart,” he said.
Gaza has faced frequent prolonged communications outages since the start of the war, with several mobile communications towers destroyed in attacks.
On March 7, it will be five months since Israel launched its war against Gaza, following Hamas’ attack on southern Israel.
More than 31,000 Palestinians, including at least 12,300 children, have been killed in Gaza since October 7. More than 8,000 people are still missing, many trapped under the rubble of destruction caused by Israeli air and ground attacks, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
More than half of Gaza’s homes – 360,000 residential units – have been destroyed or damaged, according to the latest data from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the World Health Organization (WHO ) and the Palestinian government.
According to OCHA, Israeli forces carried out “significant destruction” of residential blocks across Gaza.
The streets, once filled with laughter and rejoicing, now paint a traumatic picture: women lament over the bodies of their dead children, men search for people buried under the rubble and children desperately search for food.
Despite the difficult circumstances, football fans in Gaza carry a love of football in their hearts.
This brings them rare joy and a momentary distraction from the bombings and loss of precious lives.
Whether on radios or battery-powered television screens, or on their phones despite poor internet connections and communication outages, Palestinians in Gaza are doing their best to follow the game they love so much.
Sondos Abu-Nemer and her mother are big soccer fans.
The 15-year-old girl from Deir el-Balah is the proud owner of a replica Al Nassr jersey named after Cristiano Ronaldo – her favorite player.
“The last time I saw an Al Nassr match was on February 1, against Inter Miami, when Talisca scored a magnificent hat-trick,” she exclaims. Abu-Nemer had barely watched a few minutes of the match on his phone before the internet went out.
“(When) we don’t have an internet connection, we rely on the radio to keep us updated and that’s how I heard about Palestine’s performance at the Asian Cup in Qatar.”
Palestine reached the round of 16 of the tournament for the first time in its history, sending waves of joy across the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank.
The Gaza-born players collapsed on the pitch as their journey ended in defeat against Qatar, but they won over tens of thousands of fans in the host nation and at home in Palestine.
“No one expected Palestine to make it past the first round – we are all so proud of these players,” says young supporter Abu-Nemer proudly.
In Gaza, football has always been synonymous with life.
Before October 7, football would be at the heart of all conversations between friends – young or old – throughout the enclave.
Cafes dotted along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea that make up Gaza’s coastline would make special arrangements to screen the matches and hundreds of fans would gather to watch and cheer. Most of these cafes – Ranoosh, Al-Waha and Flamingo – were destroyed during the war.
Aspiring young footballers attempted to imitate their favorite players’ acrobatic celebrations after scoring a goal in a street football match.
The biggest club football matches, like the Clasico (Real Madrid versus Barcelona) or the English derbies, and the FIFA World Cup, would empty the streets while everyone would be glued to their television screens.
While one generation grew up in the era of Cristiano Ronaldo versus Lionel Messi, today’s generation reveres Vinicius Junior, Jude Bellingham, Pedri and Lamine Yamal.
Barcelona fan Basel Abdul-Jawwad, a nurse at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, is a fan of Frenkie De Jong.
“I watched all the Barcelona games before the war,” he says.
The 23-year-old lives on Salah al-Din Street. The last time Barcelona played in the Champions League, Abdul-Jawwad roared with joy when Robert Lewandowski scored for the Spanish champions.
“Football distracts me from the bombings that seem to never stop and the realities of this brutal war,” added Abdul-Jawwad.
While most of Gaza’s population – more than 1.5 million – have been pushed back to Rafah in the south amid large-scale destruction of homes, hundreds of thousands are now taking refuge in tents.
Hani Qarmoot is another Barcelona fan who moved to Rafah from the north after his home in the Jabalia refugee camp was raided and attacked by Israeli forces. This happened on October 27, a day before the Clasico.
“I was counting down to the game when my house was attacked,” he said.
“My cousins, who were Real Madrid fans and with whom I watched football despite the bitter rivalry between the teams, were killed in a bomb attack.”
Heartbroken and displaced, Qamoot has no way of keeping up with his beloved team. Those who can connect to the Internet for brief periods share the news with everyone else in the encampment.
Outside the tents, children continue to play soccer, albeit under the shadow of hovering drones and in fear of Israeli bombs.
Regardless of the turmoil around them, football fans are turning to the game to seek respite from their pain.
Conversations have now moved from reliving their favorite moments in a game to wondering when they will be able to follow it like before October 7.
