How Cruel Do You Have to Be?

This story caught my eye, it’s the story of a children’s football pitch being built close to Bethlehem on the West Bank of the Jordan River in Palestine:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjrz0j9p5jqo

In late December 2025, Israeli authorities issued a demolition order for a small football pitch in the Aida refugee camp just north of Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The order gives local managers a short deadline to take the structure down themselves – otherwise the Israeli military will destroy it and charge the cost to the camp’s residents.

According to the Israeli military, the pitch was built without the necessary permits and sits in an area designated under Israeli rules as subject to a construction prohibition and seizure order, especially because it lies along what Israel defines as a security fence adjoining the ‘separation barrier’ between the West Bank and Israel

Palestinians in the camp, including youth players and local community leaders, argue that the pitch is one of the only open spaces where children can play and that it represents the hopes and dreams of hundreds of young people in an overcrowded camp with extremely limited recreational areas.

Under the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, the West Bank was divided into Areas A, B, and C. Area C, which includes many lands around Bethlehem and the Aida camp, remains under full Israeli civil and security control. In practice, this means Palestinians often find it extremely difficult to obtain building permits for homes and community facilities, including schools, clinics, and sports pitches, and many such structures are deemed ‘illegal’ by Israeli authorities as permit applications are routinely denied or delayed. The pitch is also right next to the Israeli separation barrier, a fortified, concrete structure built over the last two decades, with Israel saying the fortified wall is needed to prevent militant attacks, whereas Palestinians view it as a land-grab measure that cuts off communities, farmland, and access to services. Structures close to the wall are often treated as sensitive under Israeli security policies.

The pitch was established around 2020, reportedly on land leased by the Bethlehem municipality from the Armenian Patriarchate (an Orthodox Church authority) and managed by the Aida Youth Centre to serve children from the nearby refugee camp.Because the land is classed under Israeli administrative control and lies near restricted zones, Israeli authorities say the pitch constitutes an ‘unauthorized construction’ though local Palestinians argue it had verbal approval and is essential to children’s lives and welfare and for people in Aida camp, the pitch is more than just a playing field, It’s one of the only open recreational spaces children have in a densely crowded refugee camp, which also functions as a community hub, helping young people build social ties, physical health, and a sense of normalcy amid a conflict environment.
Its potential loss has sparked local protests and appeals to international organizations, including calls for FIFA and UEFA to intervene to save it.

While Israel regularly demolishes Palestinian structures (homes, schools, agricultural buildings) on the grounds they lack permits in places like East Jerusalem and the West Bank, permit systems have been criticized by international observers as discriminatory.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been displaced by demolitions in recent years. Human Rights Watch and other organizations argue such demolitions may violate international law; Israel defends them as necessary for security or legal compliance. The Israeli administration does this while similtaneouñsy granting permits and planning permission for thousands of illegal settler homes in places like the West Bank and Golan Heights.

We probably shouldn’t expect any less from those who bomb hospitals, schools and refugee shelters but how abjectly inhuman, how absolutely devoid of human compassion, how spitefully vindictive do you have to be to deprive children living in a refugee camp of their one opportunity for exercise and enjoyment?

Does Israel never pass over, (intended), an opportunity to twist the knife that tiny bit more?

Israel doesn’t care a hoot about international opinion, but there’s a global petition against demolition of the pitch for whatever good it may do or not, put your name to the petition, if only to show that decent people are disgusted at this

The petition can be signed here:

https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/don_t_bulldoze_our_pitch_loc/