Category World News

There have been celebrations in Gaza and Israel after news of an agreement on the first phase of a ceasefire deal for Gaza. Here’s a breakdown of how the deal was announced.

Israel will resume its qualification campaign for the FIFA World Cup 2026 this coming weekend amid widespread public protests and growing demands for football’s governing body to sanction the country over its genocide in Gaza.

Despite the widespread opposition, Israel’s upcoming World Cup qualifiers – against Norway on Saturday and Italy on Tuesday – will go ahead as scheduled after FIFA sidestepped the issue by saying it cannot “solve geopolitical problems”.

Football fans and several experts have accused FIFA and UEFA of double standards over their failure to act against Israel in the two years of its war on Gaza, while swiftly sanctioning Russia following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Who has asked for a ban on Israel, and why?

More than 30 legal experts have called on UEFA to bar Israel and its clubs from competitions over the atrocities in Gaza.

The letter said banning Israel was “imperative”, citing a report by a United Nations commission of inquiry that concluded that Israel was carrying out a genocide against Palestinians. The letter highlighted the damage that Israel has inflicted on the sport in Gaza – at least 421 Palestinian footballers have been killed since Israel began its military offensive in October 2023 – and said Israel’s bombing campaign was “systematically destroying Gaza’s football infrastructure”.

While a ceasefire deal was agreed between Israel and Hamas in the early hours of Thursday, the war on Gaza has killed at least 67,183 people and wounded 169,841 in more than two years. Almost a third of those killed were children. Thousands more are believed to be buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings.

Last month, Spanish Sports Minister Pilar Alegria said Israeli teams should be banned from sport in the same way that Russian ones were in 2022.

“[Israeli forces] have killed more than 60,000 people; children, babies [are] starving to death, hospitals destroyed,” Alegria told Spanish radio station Cadena SER.

“It is difficult to explain and understand that there is a double standard. It is important that sport, given this situation, takes a position at least similar to what it did against Russia.”

Former France and Manchester United captain Eric Cantona questioned the inaction from football officials while speaking at a fundraising event for Palestine in London on September 17.

“FIFA and UEFA must suspend Israel,” he said. “Clubs everywhere must refuse to play Israeli teams.”

Additionally, hundreds of thousands of football fans and pro-Palestine protesters have called for similar measures against Israel over the past two years.

Fans have used banners, tifos, pitch invasions, stadium walkouts and other means to register their protests inside and outside sport venues.

French footballer Eric Cantona called out FIFA and UEFA for their double standards against Israel. pic.twitter.com/eJ9m2k32NN

Why has FIFA not banned Israel?

FIFA President Gianni Infantino has brushed aside the calls by indirectly addressing it as a “geopolitical issue” at the FIFA Council on October 2.

“We are committed to using the power of football to bring people together in a divided world,” Infantino said.

The apparently preferential treatment given to Israel’s football team is an extension of the “total impunity” the country has enjoyed amid the two-year war, according to Abdullah Al-Arian, associate professor of history at Georgetown University in Qatar.

“Sporting bodies often mirror the broader power politics that are at play [in the world] and so they’re only doing what we’ve seen happen across all walks of political life, in which Israel has not been held to account,” Al-Arian told Al Jazeera.

“It [Israel] has been allowed to operate with total impunity throughout this genocide and has enjoyed this impunity for many decades.”

Al-Arian, who authored the book Football in the Middle East: State, Society, and the Beautiful Game, said the double standards and “complicity” of the governing bodies were in plain sight.

“FIFA has been under pressure for two years, but it [the demand for Israel’s suspension] escalated after the latest UN finding [on Israel’s genocide in Gaza] and led to a real mobilisation.

“But there was a swift reaction from the United States to intervene on behalf of Israel and, basically, issue all kinds of threats against these bodies should they proceed [with sanctions against Israel].”

Al-Arian highlighted the US’s role as co-host for the next World Cup, along with Mexico and Canada, and the “very close relationship” between US President Donald Trump and FIFA President Gianni Infantino as another factor.

In 2024, the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) presented arguments accusing the Israel Football Association (IFA) of violating FIFA statutes with its war on Gaza and the inclusion of clubs located in illegal settlements on Palestinian territory in its domestic football league.

The PFA wanted FIFA to adopt “appropriate sanctions” against Israel’s national side and club teams, including an international ban.

It called on FIFA to ban Israel, but the world body postponed its decision by delegating the matter to its disciplinary committee for review. Al-Arian termed that “a move to keep the bureaucratic machinery moving without making any real progress”.

“Ultimately, it’s a political decision being made at the highest levels of the organisation,” he said.

Al-Arian believes the PFA is under “immense pressure” from Israel.

“Being under the thumb of an occupying power, the PFA is under tremendous internal constraints, and its decision to advance this issue has often been met with very severe consequences,” he explained.

Those consequences, he suggested, have included Israel preventing Palestinian athletes from travelling, and the “Palestinian team from meeting collectively in one place for training”.

“International matches have not been held in Palestine for years,” he pointed out. “And this is before we even get into the violence to which Palestinian footballers have been exposed. A number of players have been shot or imprisoned, held at checkpoints over the years, and entire careers have been destroyed.”

The PFA comes within the auspices of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which Al-Arian argued does not always “serve the Palestinian interests”.

“There are certainly a lot of critiques to be made in terms of the PA’s own posture with respect to Palestinian rights. Many people have referred to it as a kind of occupation subcontractor.”

Why was Israel expelled from the AFC, and why did it join UEFA?

Yet, this isn’t the first time that Israel has faced calls for expulsion from football bodies.

Israel was a founding member of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) in 1954 and played under its umbrella for 20 years.

In 1974, several Muslim and Arab countries – as well as North Korea – refused to play against Israel. This followed the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

Kuwait led a movement against Israel’s membership in the AFC and the 17 to 13 vote resulted in its expulsion from the regional body. In the 1980s, Israel played the majority of its international matches against European nations and was part of the European qualifiers for the World Cups. In 1994, it was granted full membership of UEFA.

Why are Norway and Italy playing Israel in World Cup 2026 qualifiers?

Israel is placed in Group I of UEFA’s qualifiers for the World Cup alongside Italy and Norway.

While the Italian government has largely been supportive of Israel during the war on Gaza, the country has witnessed increasingly huge protests calling for a ceasefire and criticising Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government for its refusal to condemn Israel.

Norway’s government, meanwhile, has called for the country’s sovereign wealth fund – the largest in the world – to scrutinise all investments in Israel, and withdraw from those linked to the war or the illegal occupation of the West Bank.

For the football teams of these nations, though, the stakes are different – they risk elimination from the qualifying process by pulling out of the fixtures.

“We have to play this match. Because if we don’t, we’ll lose it 3-0,” Italy’s head coach Gennaro Gattuso said, referring to the rule for forfeited matches.

Norway has pledged to donate money earned from ticket sales at its match against Israel to the humanitarian work of Doctors Without Borders (known by its French initials MSF) in Gaza.

Will there be any protests against Israel in Italy and Norway?

Both matches are expected to attract protesters outside the stadiums and pro-Palestine messaging inside.

“It’s not going to be a calm environment,” Gattuso acknowledged on Tuesday, after Italy’s training session was also targeted by protesters.

“There will be 10,000 people outside the stadium and 5-6,000 inside the stadium,” he said.

Can sport protests lead to sanctions?

According to Al-Arian, while sport has been an avenue for advancing popular causes and protest movements, its “commodification” has put heavy constraints on achieving the objectives of these protests.

“The changing relationship of global football over the last couple of decades has been one in which financial and political interests often play a very big role and put a severe limitation on football as a site of mobilisation,” he said.

“This is why football associations that should be far more sympathetic and stand in solidarity fall far short of expectations.”

The 1974 expulsion of Israel from the AFC is often cited as an example of Arab and Muslim unity against Israeli atrocities in Palestine. However, the same nations have not been able to press FIFA to sanction Israel, and Al-Arian believes these states do not pursue such policies due to “deeper incentivisation”.

“The political, economic and commercial relationships that have been established [in the past decades] make it really difficult [for the states to take action],” he said.

Al Jazeera captured live video of Israeli tanks firing towards Palestinian civilians attempting to return to Gaza City, after Israel and Hamas agreed to the first phase of a ceasefire deal.

There are celebrations in the occupied Palestinian territories and in Israel after agreement on the first stage of a ceasefire deal to end the war on Gaza. But analysts point out there are serious outstanding issues. So, what’s next?

Video shows emergency service crews celebrating the announcement of a ceasefire deal with chants and sirens. The U.S.-brokered agreement aims to end the two-year Gaza conflict, but residents reported ongoing Israeli attacks ahead of the formal start of the ceasefire.