A Gaza genocide survivor on why Ireland-Israel games should not go ahead

Paul Fennessy

ABUBAKER ABED IS a passionate football fan.

For a long time, he watched the Premier League and players such as Seamus Coleman on his phone with no electricity in Gaza.

Yet, like millions of others in the region, his life has changed irrevocably in recent years.

Originally a sports reporter and commentator, Abed has, since October 2023, become an “accidental war correspondent” documenting the unfolding tragedy.

He had lived his whole life in Gaza, growing up in the city of Deir al-Balah, but felt compelled to leave in April 2025 following threats by Israelis and the deterioration of his health.

Ireland appealed because of its educational opportunities and the large portion of the population who are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. 

The 23-year-old continued his education, studying journalism at Griffith College in Dublin and being granted a fully funded scholarship, before graduating last summer.

No foreign media are permitted to enter Gaza, while local journalists have been targeted.

“I started receiving threats online; people made false accusations against me that I belonged to any of the armed resistance groups or of the political groups: either Hamas, or any other one,” he tells The 42.

“I knew that this was the lead-up to something very dangerous, which is basically assassination. 

“And this is how they murdered people before me, because I knew the journalists who were killed. I knew some of them very well.

“And then they just made up some claims against them without any proof, and they targeted them based on these baseless claims.”

Leaving Gaza was an agonising decision, but one Abed needed to make, for the safety of his family as much as himself, though it did not save all of them.

“My cousin was murdered with his 11-year-old son,” he says. “That was a couple of kilometres from where I was at that moment, from where I live, and then in the week before I left Gaza, my cousin’s family, from my mother’s side, was wiped out.

“So six children were killed. My cousin was killed. The mother of his children was also murdered, and they struck their apartment with a couple of Apache helicopter airstrikes. So these were the last days that I had to live in Gaza before I left.”

In the weeks leading up to his departure, Abed was also suffering from “severe malnutrition”. It was March 2025, when no aid, food or medical supplies were allowed into Gaza.

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These circumstances left him “very fatigued”. When doing live reports for the camera, he was so hungry and weak that he could barely stand.

Abed now says he feels “physically” but not “emotionally” safe living in Ireland. He has described the Irish government’s recent decision to deny Visas to a group of Palestinian students as “heartbreaking,” while grateful that he did not face the same obstacles at the time.

While he has found Irish people in general to be welcoming and respectful, Abed believes the government are “complicit” in the US-Israeli-led genocide. As evidence, he cites their allowance of American fighter jets carrying weapons to fly through its airspace, remaining a major trading partner with Israel, the exclusion of services on the Occupied Territories Bill, and the way many of the country’s politicians warmly welcomed US President Donald Trump during his recent visit.

He acknowledges the government has sent millions in aid to Palestine, but adds: “You don’t help me and kill me at the same time.

“What I want from the Irish people is to make sure that the government is no longer complicit in our pain. Don’t help me endure the pain.”

He is also adamant that the two upcoming Nations League matches between Ireland and Israel, both scheduled to take place on neutral territory on 27 September and 4 October, should not go ahead.

“You open your phone in the morning, at night, in the afternoon, any single second of the day, we’re seeing mutilated children, bombed-out scenes, carpet-bombed places, wiped-out neighbourhoods, children amputated, women killed, entire families erased from civil records,” Abed says.

“Israel is perpetrating all of this, cutting all the aid off, starving people. All this has been documented. The Irish government is not living on Mars. They are aware of what is happening. They call it a genocide, right?

“If you believe that Israel has committed a genocide in Gaza, how on earth are you reluctant to ban this game? Or to say: ‘We shouldn’t play genocide, we shouldn’t play these people.’”

Before he left, many of Abed’s reports had focused on the sporting tragedy in Gaza.

Most of the stadiums have been destroyed, while the top-level football clubs have been decimated, with countless players and coaching staff killed.

“I broke news on most sporting tragedy events in Gaza, including the killing of Gaza’s first centurion of goals, Mohammed Barakat. He was killed in March 2024. He was deliberately hit in his house – he put out a video a day before his killing, saying that ‘I’m in my house’. The Israelis saw that; it’s like a surrender message, right?

“‘I’m in my house. I am a civilian. I can’t defend myself.’ 

“Then the Israelis deliberately targeted him with an airstrike. 

“I also reported in the news on the killing of the Al-Mohtarifin Football Academy: 10 players under 18.

“These players no longer exist in this world. I’ve seen their bodies. Some of them were mutilated. Some of them were dismembered and disfigured. Some lost their entire family business. Most football players in Gaza had their houses destroyed. They’re displaced.

“We did a story about the return of football in Gaza. I reported that in Drop Site News, and I talked to some of the players. One of them told me: ‘I’m talking to you on the phone, and the tank is a few kilometres from me. I could just hang up during the phone call; I could be killed. If you no longer hear me, you’ll know that I’m killed.’ So this is what the players are going through at the moment.”

Abed is not surprised that the government have refused to intervene over the upcoming Ireland-Israel fixtures.

The leadership figures within the Football Association of Ireland, meanwhile, have consistently advocated for the games to be played.

One of the main claims from those in favour of playing has been that Ireland boycotting the matches would have little influence on the genocide or how Israel is perceived worldwide.

Yet Abed points to the impact of sporting boycotts on apartheid South Africa as a counter-argument.

“The prerequisite to the dismantling of apartheid South Africa was the sports boycott,” he says.

“That was the reality that we all know. We all read history.

“When you isolate Israel from football, from sports, which is a global or the biggest avenue for speaking up in the whole world, that will affect public opinion on Israel. That will affect Israel’s participation in football competitions. You will lead by example to tell other teams, either on the club or on the international team level: ‘You know what? I’m not playing genocide.’”

While Abed has little faith that the government or the FAI will change their stances, he hopes Ireland’s footballers choose to defy the people above them.

On the other hand, should the match go ahead, he believes it would amount to an implicit endorsement or legitimisation of the Israeli regime.

“I want the players to understand that it’s not the government or the football association that has the rule, or the authority to decide on your behalf. You’re humans, and as Seamus Coleman said, he has seen everything.

“And [Roberto Lopes], who played for Cape Verde in the World Cup, said ‘we shouldn’t play this game’.

“The players should listen to their conscience, should listen to their humanity, and should do what they feel is right.

“If they saw the children, if they feel for the children, and they have seen what has happened to the children of Gaza. If they care about their families, and they have seen what happened to the families of Gaza, this game shouldn’t go ahead. They shouldn’t stand on the pitch, shaking hands, let alone having pictures together, tackling or playing ball with each other.

“And they have to take the stance that not only the people of Ireland [want], but also the people of Palestine, people like me, have lost dozens of their family members. People like the people in Gaza who no longer exist on this planet, and the people of the world who will remember these players of Ireland.

“And Ireland will get nothing out of playing with Israel; the players and Ireland will get everything out of not playing with Israel. That is the moral stance that generations and generations and generations to come will remember. This is what I want to tell the players.”