SILIGURI: This is not the first time that Saeb Jundiya is becoming the face of Palestinian football to the outside world. Ten years ago, as a documentary crew watched on through concealed lenses, the then-Palestine captain was pushed against a wall and searched by Israeli soldiers, a couple of blocks outside his home in Gaza. A decade on, as the Palestine team faces one of its toughest assignments yet in their short history, Jundiya is at the forefront again.
In May, anything seemed possible for them. They had just qualified for the Asian Cup for the first time in their history and their FIFA ranking had risen to 83. It was then that reality hit, this time in the form of Israeli action in Gaza. A distracted team performed poorly in the Peace Cup in Philippines, their minds half wondering where the next Israeli bomb might land. Long-time coach Jamal Mahmoud, who had overseen the rise of the team, quit citing ‘personal reasons.’ It was left for assistant coach Jundiya to step up.
If it was a quirk of fate that left the moustached Palestinian at the helm with four months left for the biggest tournament in Palestine football, it was an even bigger quirk that ensured that he was there to take up the task. “When the Israeli strikes were going on, I had gone, with my family to visit my relatives. When I came back, my house was not there. It had been hit by an Israeli bomb.”
Timing was Jundiya’s strong suite during his days as a defender and evidently, it had not deserted him in life. If Jundiya had chosen another day to go out of town, he would have joined a long list of footballers including former captain Ahmed Zaquot (killed in the August), Jawhar Nasser and Adam Halabiya (shot in the leg) and Mahmoud Sarsak, who famously grabbed the world’s eyeballs by going on an indefinite fast after being detained without trial by Israeli forces for almost three years. “In the recent strikes, 25 sportspersons were killed,” Jundiya sighs.
The bombs are one thing, exit visas are another. Palestine players need them for everything, be it moving from Gaza to West Bank, where the country’s professional league is organised, or be it leaving Palestine to play in another country. And these visas are often denied when they need them the most. In 2007, a crucial World Cup qualifier against Singapore had to be forfeited because 18 players were denied permission to leave the region. Here again Jundiya cuts in with a story. “I was denied the papers to join my team in West Bank towards the end of my career. I had to spend two years playing beach football.”
So how does one concentrate on football with so many shurdles to surmount, just to get on the pitch? “It’s one of our two options. We have been under Israeli occupation for a long time. If we sit there and do nothing, we would cease to exist on the international map. Football for us is a way to tell the world, we are Palestinians, we have our country and we can play football!”