ISRAELI forces have killed a Palestinian footballer and soon-to-be father in Gaza.
32-year-old Saleem Al-Ashqar, who played as a goalkeeper for Khan Younis-based club Khadamat Khan, was killed by live fire while stopping at a shop on the way home from work, the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) said.
He had been married for around five months prior to his death and his wife is expecting their first-born child.
The PFA told The New Arab newspaper that he was immediately rushed to hospital, where examinations revealed severe internal haemorrhaging and extensive damage to his stomach, intestines, liver, and pancreas.
Dima Youssef, commenting as a spokesperson for the association said: "Despite medical efforts, the hospital's severely limited capabilities – exacerbated by the collapse of Gaza's health sector due to the ongoing war of extermination, as well as shortages of equipment, electricity, and medical staff – made it impossible to control the internal bleeding.
"Given the severity of his injuries, Al-Ashqar passed away about two hours after arriving at the hospital."
استشهاد حارس مرمى خدمات خانيونس سليم الأشقر برصاص الاحتلال 🔗 لمزيد من التفاصيل 👇https://t.co/e9Ik1VpgyI pic.twitter.com/TtSJPp51vT
— Palestine Football Association (@Palestine_fa) June 29, 2026
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Saadallah Abu Mousa, a relative of Al-Ashqar, described him as "one of the finest young men in our neighbourhood", adding that while he was on his way home from work he, and other unarmed civilians were fired upon by Israeli tanks.
More than 1000 Palestinian sportspeople have been killed in Israel's genocidal war since October 2023, around half of whom were footballers. The game's infrastructure has also been decimated in Gaza, with around 290 stadiums and sports complexes having been destroyed or damaged by Israeli strikes.
On Wednesday the Home Office implemented new rules to make it more difficult for Palestinians fleeing Israel's attacks to enter the UK.
The advice used by caseworkers was rewritten under Home Office guidance, stating that the area is no longer gripped by the same level of indiscriminate violence seen before the October 2025 "ceasefire", which – according to the country's health ministry – has seen more around 1050 people killed by Israel since.
Previously, the Home Office security guidance accepted that civilians in Gaza faced a risk of serious harm.
The revised guidance now states that the “scale and intensity of violence have decreased significantly”.
It says: “The security situation in Gaza is such that there are not substantial grounds for believing there is a real risk of serious harm because there exists a serious and individual threat to a civilian’s life or person by reason of indiscriminate violence.”
Instead, officials are told: “A person may still face a real risk of serious harm if they are able to show that there are specific reasons over and above simply being a civilian affected by indiscriminate violence.”
At least 73,066 people, 21,500 of which were children including 1022 babies, have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, with more than 90% of the area destroyed and Israel in control of around 80% of the strip.
