Football: Qatar to donate Asian Cup ticket revenue to Palestinians

2023-11-20 18:34:08

A little over a year after hosting the 2023 World Cup, Qatar is preparing to host a new football competition, the Asian Cup. A moment of celebration but also of solidarity: “We have decided to donate the income generated by tickets sold for the Asian Cup in Qatar to provide necessary aid to Palestine,” declared the president of the organizing committee, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, without specifying whether all of these revenues, or only part, were concerned.

While the war between Israel and Hamas has raged since the terrorist attack of October 7, the president of the organizing committee of the football event, which will be held next January and February, announced on Monday that part – or even all – of the profits from competition tickets will be donated to Palestinian victims of the conflict.

“We will ensure that this social responsibility effort benefits those most affected, and that football fulfills its role as a support mechanism for the population during these extremely difficult times,” added Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani.

On October 7, Hamas commandos launched from the Gaza Strip an attack of unprecedented violence and scale on Israeli soil since the creation of Israel in 1948, killing around 1,200 people according to Israeli authorities. , mostly civilians. The Palestinian Islamist movement also took more than 240 people hostage, taken to Gaza.

In retaliation for this attack, which traumatized the country, Israel has vowed to “annihilate” Hamas and has relentlessly shelled the Palestinian territory, where its army has also been carrying out a ground offensive since October 27.

Qatar mediates for release of hostages

But the scale of the destruction and the toll of victims have sparked criticism from part of the international community. According to the Hamas Ministry of Health, 13,000 people, including more than 5,500 children, were killed in Israeli bombings.

Around 1.6 million of the 2.4 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, according to the UN, have also been displaced by the war in this small, overpopulated territory subject since October 9 to a “complete siege” by Israel, which blocks deliveries of food, water, electricity and medicine.

Qatar is currently mediating to try to secure the release of Hamas hostages in exchange for a truce, and said on Sunday that only “very minor” obstacles remained to an agreement, without providing any details. calendar.

Doha, which hosts a Hamas political office and has provided millions of dollars in financial aid to Gaza, was already involved in the mediation that last month led to the release of four of the hostages: an American woman and her daughter as well as two Israeli women. .