The IDF has gone public with the names, roles and alleged militant affiliations of twelve Palestinian sports figures from Gaza, arguing that men long presented to the world as footballers, a referee and coaches were, in its account, active operatives in Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad who were killed by Israeli forces during the war.
The disclosure, reported by ONE and corroborated by an IDF statement carried in English by i24NEWS and Fox News, names Mohammed Sami Mohammed Khattab — described as a FIFA-listed international assistant referee — whom the military alleges was a member of Islamic Jihad's Central Camps Brigade.
Also named is Mohammed Barakat, capped three times for the Palestine national team and captain of a Khan Younis club side, whom the IDF says was a Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative allegedly involved in the October 7 attack. Ahmad Abu al-Ata, a defender who played for Gaza sides Ittihad Al-Shuja'iya, Al-Tofah and Al-Ahli Gaza, is described as a Islamic Jihad platoon commander.
The rest of the list includes goalkeeper Mahmoud Osama al-Jazzar, midfielder Tariq Ziad Hussein al-Hour, coach Ali al-Kurd of Al-Qadsiah in Rafah, youth fitness coach Mohammed Mansour, team captains Mohammed Amad Hassouna and Mahmoud al-Rifai, and players Abdullah Riyadh Khattab, Mohammed Nidal al-Hawajri and Mohammed al-Hour, a member of a Palestinian beach soccer squad. The IDF assigns each an internal military role, ranging from squad and platoon command to combat and anti-tank positions.
"Following an intelligence assessment, the IDF can now disclose these terrorists' organisational affiliations and operational roles," the military said in the statement carried by Fox News, framing the release as a rebuttal to what it called a "false campaign portraying the IDF as deliberately targeting members of the soccer community."
None of the claims about individual roles can be independently verified from open sources, and no forensic or judicial material accompanying the identifications has been made public. Fox News said it contacted the Permanent Observer Mission of the State of Palestine to the United Nations for comment and had not received a response at the time of publication; ONE's report likewise carries no reply from the Palestinian side.
The release lands in the middle of one of the most contentious threads of the Gaza war's sporting fallout. The Palestinian Football Association has said roughly 1,009 members of its wider sporting community, including more than 400 footballers, have been killed since the war began in October 2023 — a toll the federation has repeatedly cited in lobbying FIFA and the IOC, through its president Jibril Rajoub, to suspend Israel from international competition.
Individual cases have drawn wide attention on both sides of that argument. The July killing of former Palestine international Suleiman al-Obeid, dubbed the "Palestinian Pelé" by the PFA, while he reportedly waited for aid, prompted global condemnation; the IDF said at the time it was unaware of casualties in the area that day. Wednesday's list appears designed to pre-empt or answer criticism of exactly that kind by asserting that specific individuals killed in the conflict were combatants rather than civilians.
The dispute also sits against the destruction of Gaza's football infrastructure, including the demolition of the rebuilt Palestine Stadium in Gaza City, which forced the Palestinian national team to relocate World Cup qualifying fixtures to Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates.
ONE's report does not indicate that FIFA, the Asian Football Confederation or any Gaza club has responded to the specific names published this week. Until an independent body examines the underlying evidence, the IDF's list stands as a military assertion rather than an adjudicated finding, even as it adds a new and sharply contested chapter to the argument over who, exactly, Israel has been fighting in Gaza's stadiums and training pitches.
