One of Susan Shalabi’s duties as vice-president of the Palestine Football Association is to record the death of registered players. It’s a task, never easy, that has become harder than ever. More names are coming in every day as Israeli assaults continue in Gaza in response to the murderous Hamas attacks. Seeing the photos makes it especially heartbreaking: images of the goalkeeper Haytham Areir from Shaja’yeh in the north, brothers Emad and Mohammed Hijazi of the Score Academy in Rafah standing proudly in their kits, and Shadi Sabah of Deir al-Balah who died with his entire family when his building was bombed.
“The list is long, and full of children,” Shalabi says. “I was supposed to sit and document it but this is very painful. Somehow I have this irrational fear that if I start then the numbers will increase and I haven’t even heard the stories of each one of these young people whose football dreams are for ever buried under the rubble.”
