A Palestinian armed with a knife charged at Israeli soldiers on the outskirts of the city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank on Sunday and was shot dead, the Israeli army said.
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The Shabab Khan Younis players had been due to play Ahly al-Khalil of Hebron at the weekend but were barred from crossing through Israel.
Palestinian footballers routinely complain of being unable to attend matches because of Israel’s stringent restrictions on movement between the two territories.
Hamas officials are expecting a clampdown on its members in the West Bank at the hands of rival party Fatah in a bid to skew the upcoming elections, the Times of Israel news site reports.
“The Israeli authorities have recently advanced plans for the construction of (Israeli) settlements in the West Bank: 770 new homes in Gilo settlement and another 323 dwellings in various neighborhoods in East Jerusalem”.
The match had originally been slated to take place on Saturday, but Israel prevented it from going ahead, according to Palestinian sports authorities.
Since October, Palestinians, many of them acting alone and with rudimentary weapons, have killed at least 33 Israelis and two visiting Americans.
Israel says it carries out demolitions because Palestinians had built them without permits.
He said that any attempt to rebuild alliances in the Middle East that does not include a Palestinian state will be lacking and unstable.
Four Palestinian youths were also detained in the northeastern West Bank town of Far’un. 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. The Palestinian Football Association later withdrew the motion as part of a compromise that agreed to establish a committee to ensure freedom of movement for Palestinian players.
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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).
