Palestinian movement between the West Bank and Gaza requires prior approval by the Israeli authorities, who generally only grant permits to medical patients, merchants and foreigners. The settlements were demolished when Israel pulled settlers and soldiers from Gaza in 2005.
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Palestinian footballers routinely complain of being unable to attend matches because of Israel’s stringent restrictions on movement between the two territories.
“We have been seeing more and more settlements built in the past few years and increased demolitions of Palestinian property recently”, said Jamal Dajani, director of communications for Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah.
Violence broke out when Palestinian youths clashed with Israeli troopers at the northern entrance to the nearby Balata refugee camp and the adjacent Amman Street, with young Palestinian men throwing stones and empty bottles at Israeli forces.
Israeli authorities did not allow the players and coach from Gaza’s second city Khan Yunis to enter the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel for almost 50 years.
And, just last week, Rajoub demanded that Jewish football clubs from Judea and Samaria be expelled from the Israeli league because they are “operating on Palestinian land”.
The Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, told Haaretz that it made a decision to not let the Palestinian players leave the Gaza Strip “due to damaging security information and in light of the security situation”.
Hamas and Fatah agreed a unity deal in April 2014 that was supposed to lead to a technocratic government taking over administration of Gaza and the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority still pays the monthly salaries of some 70,000 civil servants in Gaza who are loyal to Abbas and left their posts after the Hamas takeover.
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Yoni Mendel is the projects manager of the Mediterranean Unit at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, and co-editor of the book review section of the Journal of Levantine Studies (JLS).
