The Palestine Football Association has announced that footballers Momen Oleiwa, 23, and Islam Matar, 22 were both further casualties of the ongoing bombardment in Gaza.
Oleiwa, a player for Ittihad Al-Shujaya, is reported to have been killed in an Israeli strike while Matar, a forward for the Al-Aqsa, was killed by Israeli forces while waiting for aid.
The PFA’s statement (translated) metions how eight Palestinian sportsmen have been “killed since the beginning of August, bringing the death toll to 668, including 326 football players. […] Matar was killed on the second of this month while waiting for humanitarian aid in the Central Gaza Strip. Aliwa was killled in an Israeli bombardment that targeted a journalists’ tent last Sunday.”
They further note how Oleiwa and Matar join fellow footballers Suleiman Al-Obeid, as victims of the ongoing bombardment of the Gaza Strip, as well as “Nasrallah Muhammad Nasrallah Al-Muqata’a, a player for the Ittihad Deir Al-Balah club; Alaa Jumaa Al-Hawajri, a player for the Services of Al-Nuseirat club; Mahmoud Rafi Shaheen, a player for the Al-Tuffah club.”