We recently carried reports about a campaign to save one of the few green spaces in Bethlehem – a football pitch next to the Separation Wall, used by young people from Aida Refugee Camp, which was threatened with demolition by Israel. A petition addressed to Gianni Infantino, President of FIFA and Aleksander Čeferin, President of UEFA, urging them intervene has attracted more than 350,000 signatures. Several media outlets reported that Israel had responded to international pressure and cancelled the demolition order – but the head of Aida Youth Centre has said that they have not received any official notification that the pitch has been saved.
Munther Amira, head of the Aida Youth Centre, told Al Jazeera yesterday: “Our lawyers have not received any official response from the court or from the Israeli authorities confirming this information.. For Aida camp, the youth centre and the Aida sports team, these remain unconfirmed media reports with no official basis.”
Amira said: “Israeli occupation forces issued the first demolition order against the football pitch on November 3 after storming the camp and posting the notice on the pitch’s main gate.”
He said the first demolition order cited “security concerns”, claiming the pitch posed a threat due to its proximity to the illegal separation wall adjacent to the camp.
“We’ve been living on edge after receiving successive demolition orders targeting the pitch, which represents hope for more than 250 children and young people in the camp.”
A second demolition order was on December 31 he said. The refugee camp’s Popular Committee for Services – which holds the lease to the pitch – petitioned an Israeli court, which decided to delay the demolition until January 18.
Amira explained that the Israeli army gave the centre an additional seven days to carry out the demolition themselves: “They told us either we demolish the pitch ourselves, or they will demolish it and force us to pay the costs.”
Saeed al-Azzha, head of Aida’s Popular Committee for Services, said an agreement with the Bethlehem Municipality allowed for the use of the land to build a football pitch, a theatre and a public garden. “The committee built the pitch and the theatre, but Israel prevented the construction of the garden and issued repeated demolition orders against the pitch,” he said.
Al-Azzha stressed that the pitch was built legally on leased land owned by the Armenian Church.
The Palestinian Football Association (PFA), has said the demolition order constitutes a violation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Israel has ratified, and deprives hundreds xx of children of their right to practise sport and to develop in a safe and healthy environment.
The PFA said the decision forms part of what it described as a systematic Israeli policy targeting Palestinian sport, which has resulted in the killing of hundreds of Palestinian athletes, and the destruction of almost 300 sport facilities, either totally or partially.
An IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said on Tuesday: “Along the [separation] barrier, there is a seizure order and a construction ban, and therefore the construction in the area was carried out illegally. The matter … is being discussed in the relevant legal forums.”
To add your name to the petition, see: https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/don_t_bulldoze_our_pitch_loc/