A team that offered hope... then, four months later, Hamas attacked Israel — SkimNews
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- Israel's under-20 team finished third at the 2023 U-20 World Cup after stunning Brazil in the quarter-finals, with their semi-final against eventual champions Uruguay drawing a 23% viewing share on Israeli television
- Anan Khalaili, an Israeli Arab who used the Hebrew phrase "Am Yisrael" in a post-match interview after a stoppage-time winner against Uzbekistan, signed with Crystal Palace this summer for a fee in the region of £21.5m after a move to Inter Milan collapsed
- Oscar Gloukh posted photographs of his lifelong friend Afik Tery after Tery was killed by a Hamas explosive while serving in the IDF; the same cohort's other top talents — Roy Revivo at Elche, Stav Lemkin at Twente, and Dor Turgeman, Ilay Feingold and Idan Toklomati in MLS — have also moved abroad
- Dia Saba left Maccabi Haifa in 2025 and now plays for Turkish side Amedspor after his wife posted "There are children in Gaza, too" on Instagram, saying reasons "stronger than us" ended his career at his boyhood team
- Kick It Out Israel recorded racist chants like "Let's kill all Arabs" and "There are no schools in Gaza because there are no children left" spreading to smaller clubs after October 7, even as Arab players — roughly 35% of elite-level participants despite being about 20% of the population — had previously been broadly respected
- Ataa Jaber captained Israel's U-21 side but switched to represent Palestine in June 2023, citing police evictions of Palestinian families in East Jerusalem, damaging his prospects of a European move and prompting calls to revoke his Israeli citizenship
Why it matters: The same dressing room that briefly produced Muslim prayer and Jewish tefillin side by side has been forced apart: one star left Israel after his wife posted about Gaza's children, another's best friend died in IDF combat, and racist chants that Beitar Jerusalem ultras once monopolised have spread to grassroots clubs where they were previously unheard. The talent pipeline that produced this golden generation depends on whether players from both communities can still share a national shirt — a question that is now about Israeli identity, not just sport.
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