How football brings joy and helps heal Palestinian children in Qatar

Doha, Qatar — It is Saturday afternoon and a small football pitch at a residential compound in Qatar is beginning to fill up with dozens of children ahead of their weekly football training.

The complex, on the outskirts of the capital, Doha, is home to Palestinian families evacuated from Gaza over the past year – since Israel began its genocidal war on the besieged Strip.

Qatar hosts more than 1,700 Palestinians, including 762 children, who were evacuated from Gaza, according to numbers provided by Qatar’s Ministry of Interior. The evacuations began in the weeks following the onslaught of Israeli attacks on Gaza and were halted when Israeli forces shut the Rafah border in May.

Boys and girls of various age groups would assemble in the open area amid apartment buildings, indifferent to the typically hot and humid September weather.

As soon as the football coaches from the Doha-based Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) football academy arrive, they are greeted with big smiles and high-fives from the children.

“For the past 11 months, we have never skipped our weekly training sessions here,” coach Bassam Khalil tells Al Jazeera and adds: “Even in much hotter weather.”

Khalil explained that it took them weeks, and, in some cases, months to break the ice with the children.

“The children were very aggressive on the pitch to begin with,” he said.

“It’s natural. They came out of a war zone, they are the children of Gaza, so we had to be patient and compassionate with them before we could begin proper football training.”

Khalil smiles when he sees the children go through their paces on the pitch. His colleague walks up to them with training gear and footballs.

After a quick pep talk and some warm-up routines, the players are divided into two five-a-side teams and the action begins.