The Palestinian Football community was rocked early Thursday morning by the news that Thaqafi Tulkarem’s Ahmed Daraghmeh had been shot and killed by Israeli Forces during a raid on the city of Nablus.
Daraghmeh, 23, was a breakout star of the Tubas side that won promotion to the West Bank Premier League in 2020 and survived two seasons in the top flight in spite of their limited resources. Upon Tubas’s relegation to the second division, Daraghmeh joined Thaqafi Tulkarem and was one of the revelations of the first half of the season scoring six out of his team’s 15 goals over the first 11 match days of the season.
Israeli forces had entered the city in tandem with settlers late Wednesday night. It has been common practice for far right settlers to pray at the site of St. Joseph’s tomb in the city and the presence of armed settlers and soldiers there had been the cause of many clashes over the past years.
The Israeli raid on Nablus lasted for several hours with the army making their way through the eastern part of the city. Live ammunition and tear gas was used to facilitate the presence of the settlers at the tomb and Daraghmeh was shot in the stomach and died before he could be transported to hospital. Six others were hit with live ammunition overnight with 30 other injured due to shrapnel and tear gas.
Ahmed Daraghmeh had dreamed of playing abroad and was certainly getting closer to realizing that dream after a blistering start to the season. In his spare time, he was an avid horseback rider and would help his father in the off-season harvest dates in the Palestinian valley. He is the 224th person killed this year by Israel’s occupation.
This is unfortunately not the first time a Palestinian footballer has been killed or injured by Israeli agression. Last May, an Israeli air strike on Beit Lahia killed 23 year old Beit Hanoun midfielder Muath AlZaaneen. During the last war on Gaza, the houses of national team footballers Mohammed Balah and Mohammed Saleh were reduced to rubble in an aerial bombardment that has flattened buildings housing the media, NGOs, startups, mosques, and churches.
