FIFA have been urged to intervene after Israeli authorities have ordered the demolition of a football pitch in a crowded refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, eliminating one of the few spaces where Palestinian children can play.
The decision has been met with dismay. Rital Sarhan, 13, who plays on a girls’ team in the Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem, said: “If the field gets demolished, this will destroy our dreams and our future. We cannot play any other place but this field, the camp does not have spaces.”
The Israeli military issued the demolition order on 31 December, citing illegal construction in an area abutting the concrete barrier wall Israel built in the West Bank.
“Along the security fence, a seizure order and a construction prohibition order are in effect; therefore, the construction in the area was carried out unlawfully,” the Israeli military said in a statement.
Mohammad Abu Srour, an administrator at Aida Youth Center, which manages the field, said the military gave them seven days to demolish the field.
The Israeli military often orders Palestinians to carry out demolitions themselves. If they do not act, the military steps in to destroy the structure in question and then sends the Palestinians a bill for the costs.
A campaign has been launched to save the pitch, calling on FIFA and UEFA to intervene.
According to Abu Srour, Israel’s military told residents when delivering the demolition order that the soccer field represented a threat to the separation wall and to Israelis.
“I do not know how this is possible,” he said.
Israeli demolitions have drawn widespread international criticism and coincide with heightened fears among Palestinians of an organised effort by Israel to formally annex the West Bank, the area seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.
Israel accelerated demolitions in Palestinian refugee camps in early 2025, leading to the displacement of 32,000 residents of camps in the central and northern West Bank. Human Rights Watch has called the demolitions a war crime. Israel has said they are intended to disrupt militant activity.
