Dozens of Palestinian citizens suffered suffocation on Saturday evening when Israeli soldiers launched a tear gas attack on the Faisal Husseini stadium in al-Ram town, northeast of Occupied Jerusalem.
Local sources said that Israeli forces fired the tear gas at the stadium as it was filled with some 1,200 players and fans attending a match between al-Thahiriyah and Shabab Balata in the Abu Ammar Cup.
Medics at the stadium treated the injured at the scene, locals said.
The match was also suspended for 10 minutes. Head of the Palestinian Football Association Jibril Rajoub, for his part, strongly denounced the tear gas assault on the stadium, describing it as a “crime reflecting Israel’s barbaric and racist intents.”
Rajoub called upon international sports organizations to intervene to protect Palestinian soccer players and athletes as well as their infrastructure against Israel’s violations. In separate incidents, one Israeli soldier was injured on the same day when Palestinian young men hurled stones at an Israeli military patrol in Qatana village northwest of Jerusalem. In Ramallah, the Israeli army launched an overnight search operation, amid intensive gunfire, in an area near Silwad town after local young men threw stones at settlers’ cars on Road 60.
