Israel abducts Palestine international women’s football player

Authorities in Israel have arrested a player from the Palestinian women’s national football team.

Israel arrested 20-year-old Rand Halawani on Tuesday evening, and the courts have since extended her detention until Friday. The Israelis arrested her after they summoned her to a police station in West Jerusalem.

Israel’s military also arrested Natalie Abu Diyyeh, a former national football player and student at Birzeit University, as well as three other young Palestinian women in the occupied West Bank. They were arrested during an illegal raid on the Occupied West Bank.

The Israeli occupation abducted overnight four students from Birzeit, including Natalie Abu Dayyeh, journalism student, former national football team member and member of the Lutheran Church. Very talented and dedicated, probably she was taken because everyone loves her.

— Xavier Abu Eid (@xabueid) June 2, 2026

In a statement, the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) denounced the prolonged detention, and said it was:

not an isolated incident; it is part of a well-documented pattern of systematic targeting of Palestinian athletes, which continues without accountability

The Israeli military claimed that it suspected the four women of:

promoting terrorist activities and additional terrorist-related activities.

So they were probably just breathing. We all know that Israel labels anything it doesn’t like as ‘terrorism’.

Birzeit University also condemned the arrests as part of Israel’s:

systematic policies targeting Palestinian education and students’ right to continue their academic journey.

In total, Israel is holding at least 89 Palestinian women in its jails. This includes three minors and three pregnant women.

As of late May, over 9,400 Palestinians were being held in Israeli jails, including Palestinian citizens of the occupied territories.

Israel — A well-documented pattern

From bombing stadiums and sports clubs to murdering well-known players, Israel’s genocide has practically destroyed football in Gaza.

One such example is the Yarmouk Stadium, a former stadium in Gaza City. Palestinian athletes who once dreamed of making the Olympics trained there. The IOF occupied it in October 2023 and used it as an illegal interrogation camp.

The IOF then destroyed the stadium. It was then turned into a makeshift refugee camp.

Many of the athletes who used to train there died as martyrs.

Israel murdered Mohammed al-Malouf (23), a striker for Jabalia Youth Club known as “the fast horse”, in a bombing that targeted his home. Ninety-five players were children who dreamed of reaching the world stage and carrying the Palestinian flag in tournaments, but the occupation ended their lives and dreams, adding them to the list of martyrs.

As of September 2025, Israel had murdered nearly 800 Palestinian athletes, including 400 football players and 95 children. It had also destroyed 273 sports facilities and all five official stadiums, which used to host thousands of fans. It turned them into mass graves and displacement centres.

Where’s FIFA?

For two and a half years, FIFA has chosen to ignore Israel’s well-documented genocide. On top of that, it has ignored Israel’s systemic and deliberate attacks on Palestinian footballers. 

When we compare it to FIFA’s treatment of Russia, we have to ask, why the double standards?

In February 2022, just a few days after Russia invaded Ukraine, FIFA and the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) announced the suspension of Russian national teams and clubs from all international competitions.

The decision was based on ‘exceptional and unprecedented circumstances,’ as described by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which later upheld the sanction.

In contrast, despite decades of documented violations by Israel against Palestinian athletes — preventing movement, killing athletes, destroying sports infrastructure, and involving settlement clubs — FIFA has not taken similar action.

This discrepancy has led observers to question whether FIFA applies double standards in enforcing its regulations and whether politics plays a greater role than law in its decision-making.

Of course, the main difference is that Russia is attacking a majority-white country, which the international community agrees is illegal. In contrast, Israel is attacking a majority Arab country, which is apparently so much more controversial. The racist West continues to put far less value on black and brown lives than it does on those that are white. No doubt this is one of the reasons that Israel has gotten away with its war crimes for so long.

Feature image via Amir Levy/ Getty Images