Israel delays demolition of Palestinian children’s football field in Bethlehem

Israel has delayed the demolition of a Palestinian children’s football club in the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem.

It is alleged that the pitch at the Aida Youth Center was built without the necessary permits.

It said the demolition was necessary for safety reasons.

An international campaign to save it, including a petition with more than half a million signatures, appears to have forced authorities to reconsider. However, the club said it has not received any official notification.

It’s less than one-tenth the size of a full football field, with goalposts mottled with rust that tower over the length of a sideline, conflicting architecture looming among Israel’s concrete security barriers.

While it may not rank high among the world’s most iconic stadiums, the children’s football club has found itself at the center of a grueling international campaign for survival.

Despite the asymmetric odds against the Israeli government, the campaign appears — at least for now — to be working.

The club won a reprieve from demolition after the Israeli military claimed the stadium was too close to the separation wall.

Located in the northernmost tip of Bethlehem, construction of the stadium began in 2020 to provide a place for more than 200 young players from the nearby Aida refugee camp to practice football.

The narrow, crowded streets are populated by the descendants of Palestinian families who were forced or fled their homes during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

On November 3 last year, when the children were walking the short distance from the camp to attend the day’s training, they discovered a notice posted on the gate to the football field declaring it illegal.

The notice was followed by a demolition order in late December.

“We have nowhere else to play,” 10-year-old Naya told me, wearing a Brazil jersey with soccer legend Neymar’s name emblazoned on the back.

“We’re building our dreams here,” she said. “If they destroy our field, they destroy our dreams.”

I asked Mohamed, another young player, what his reaction was when he heard the news that the club had been earmarked for destruction.

“I was frustrated,” he told me. “That’s an area that I’m really concerned about.”

The community fought back, posting videos on social media, launching petitions that attracted hundreds of thousands of signatures, and reportedly involving senior officials from some global and regional football governing bodies.

In its latest statement, the Israeli military reiterated that the football stadium being built so close to the separation wall poses a security problem.

But the BBC understands a political decision has been made to delay the demolition order “temporarily”.

Israel began building the concrete barrier in the early 2000s in the face of a wave of deadly suicide bombings and other attacks by Palestinians that killed hundreds of Israelis.

It says this is crucial to protecting Israel and has significantly reduced the number of attacks.

However, Palestinians say it has become a tool of collective punishment, separating them from their workplaces, dividing their communities and effectively annexing parts of their land.

For them, the fight on the football field highlighted wider injustices.

While Israel has been denied the right to keep small sports facilities within its city borders, it is approving massive new settlements in the occupied West Bank that are considered illegal under international law.

Now, the immediate threat on the football field may have been averted.

But the club doesn’t take anything for granted.

Mohamed Abu Srour, one of the board members of the Al Aida Youth Center, told me they fear the threat could return when the club steps out of the spotlight.

“We will continue to campaign,” he told me.