Israeli strike kills aid worker who brought World Cup screenings to Gaza

An Israeli missile strike has killed a Palestinian humanitarian worker who spent recent weeks arranging outdoor screenings so residents of the besieged Gaza Strip could watch World Cup matches, according to a hospital director in the territory. The attack came only hours before crowds were due to gather on Tuesday evening for a scheduled Egypt-Argentina fixture.

The victim, identified as Mohamed Al-Wahidi, served as the public-facing spokesperson for the Egyptian Relief Committee operating inside Gaza, a hospital official told reporters. His death has drawn attention not only because of the ongoing toll of the conflict but because of the unusual, morale-boosting project he had taken on amid the devastation.

The relief organization Al-Wahidi represented was founded at the direction of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi with a mandate to funnel humanitarian assistance into the Palestinian territory as the war has ground on. Through that role, Al-Wahidi had become a familiar figure to residents seeking both aid and small moments of normalcy.

In the weeks leading up to his death, Al-Wahidi had taken the initiative to set up communal viewing sessions for World Cup matches in locations scattered throughout Gaza. Families and neighbors of every generation turned out for the screenings, often settling onto piles of debris or perching on the remains of buildings damaged by months of bombardment, straining to catch a broadcast of a tournament being staged thousands of miles away across the United States, Canada and Mexico.

For many attendees, the gatherings offered a rare escape from the grinding realities of displacement and destruction, turning a global sporting event into a communal ritual carved out of very little. Aid workers in conflict zones have long noted that such shared cultural moments, however modest, can carry outsized significance for populations enduring prolonged crises, offering brief respite and a sense of connection to the outside world.

Neither Israeli military officials nor other authorities had issued public comment on the strike at the time the hospital director's account was reported, leaving key details about the operation's target and justification unaddressed. That silence is consistent with a broader pattern in the conflict, in which strikes are frequently confirmed by local medical or hospital sources well before, if ever, being formally addressed by Israeli officials.

Al-Wahidi's death raises questions about the future of the screening initiative and the wider humanitarian work of the Egyptian Relief Committee in Gaza, which has continued distributing aid despite the risks faced by its staff. It was not immediately clear whether other organizers would continue the World Cup viewing gatherings he had helped establish, or how his colleagues at the relief committee planned to respond to the loss of a prominent member of their team.

Source: CBS World