First Person: Football dream alive in Gaza despite ‘constant fire’

Mohamed Abu Jalda who is currently living in a camp for displaced people after fleeing his home, practices on the beach in the Al-Mawasi area of Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip.

He spoke to UN News’s Ziad Taleb.

"I am Mohamed Abu Jalda, a player for the Rafah Services Club a football team in the first division in Gaza.

UN News/Ziad Taleb

Mohamed Abu Jalda, plays for the Rafah Services Football Club.

I had a big ambition to become a great football player like others outside the Gaza Strip, but because of the war, my ambition and my life were delayed. I'm now 20 years old, trying to become a professional, but I can't because I live in Gaza under constant fire.

Every day I feel like I'm dying; may God give us patience to endure this life. I am from Rafah, but I now live in the Shaboura camp for displaced people in the Al-Mawasi area of Rafah.

It's been five months since I was moved there.

Whenever I find some free time and feel like playing football, I head to the beach, the only place where I can play.

© UNICEF/Eyad El Baba

The bombing continues in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

We were displaced and no one came to look for us. I want my voice to reach the world.

My dream and ambition is to play football. I’ve had this ambition since I was 10 years old, but now I’m over 20, and I see nothing because I live in Gaza under this oppression.

‘What makes me different?’

Why can't I become a football player? What makes me different from anyone else in the world? I have ears like them, a nose like them, and feet like them; there is nothing different.

Because of the war, no opportunities have come my way. Before the war, I was physically fit, but now things have changed due to the displacement we are living through.

I try to train every three days on the beach to fulfill my ambition and hope that my voice reaches the world, because I have the right to become a professional footballer as much as anyone else.

I hope that God grants me success to become a football player.

I am proud to be from Gaza and I hope to play for the Palestinian national team, because this is my right.

Let them test me, and I will show all the skills I have in football."