The opening ceremony of the Asian Football Cup – Friday – included a special gesture towards the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, as the captain of the Palestinian national team took to the stage to take the championship oath during the main show.
At Lusail Stadium, which has a capacity of 88,000 spectators, and before the start of the host country’s opening match with Lebanon, Qatar’s captain, Hassan Al-Haydous, presented his Palestinian counterpart, Musab Al-Battat, who took the championship oath. This came after a singing and dancing performance in which part of the Palestinian national anthem was used.
Al-Battat ascended to the stage wearing his country’s national team uniform, wearing the traditional Palestinian keffiyeh, and took the oath on behalf of all the players.
🇶🇦🇵🇸 Al-Haydos gives the Palestine captain the honor of performing the championship oath
On the sidelines of the opening of the Asian Cup Qatar 2023™, the captain of the Qatar national team, Hassan Al-Haydos, granted the honor of taking the tournament oath on behalf of all the players, to the captain of the Palestinian national team, Musab Al-Battat.
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His team will begin its Asian Cup campaign against Iran on Sunday.
Since October 7, 2023, the Israeli occupation army has been waging a devastating war on Gaza that, as of Friday, left 23,708 martyrs, 60,050 injured, most of them children and women, massive destruction of infrastructure and an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, according to the Gaza Strip authorities and the United Nations.