children squared off on Monday for games of football, just kilometres
(miles) away from the devastated Gaza Strip.
Some 80 boys aged between 6 and 16 met for the tournament at the
playing fields of the Dorot kibbutz in southern Israel, which had been
struck by rockets from Gaza during the 50-day war.
The Israeli children came from villages surrounding the besieged
Palestinian enclave while the Palestinians were bused in from Yatta in
the southern West Bank.
The tournament was part of an initiative launched 12 years ago and
aimed at bringing together Palestinians from Israeli-annexed east
Jerusalem and disaffected Israeli youths.
Many of the boys had played together before at other such gatherings
organised by the Peres Centre for Peace, which is run by former
president Shimon Peres.
Monday's football came nearly a week after a ceasefire ended the Gaza
war, and allowed Israeli children to return to their homes.
Initial apprehension was obvious on both sides, but the young players'
enthusiasm for the game soon took over.
The war in Gaza killed more than 2,140 Palestinians -- a quarter of
them children -- and 71 on the Israeli side, mostly soldiers, but also
a four-year-old boy.
"It's great to come back here after weeks stuck at home during the
war, and to have some fun," said 11-year-old Ofir from Sderot in
southern Israel, one of the towns most hit by Gaza rocket fire.
"The Arab kids aren't mean, and there are some who want peace like
me," said the curly-haired blond boy.
Eleven-year-old Qusay agreed.
"I like it when we play together. I hope one day there will be peace
between Jews and Arabs, and no more war or death," he said.
The Palestinian children had travelled for three hours by bus, and
were stopped by an Israeli army checkpoint and searched by soldiers.
For some it was their first such experience.
But any feelings of animosity they may have had towards their Israeli
hosts appeared to evaporate as they put on their football boots and
ran out on to the pitch.
- 'Children of peace' -
Peres, who stepped down as Israel's 9th president in July, made a rare
public appearance to help kick off the day and support the event.
"You won't be playing against each other but with each other," the
90-year-old Nobel Laureate told the boys, holding a football.
"You're the generation of tomorrow. Show us how to play together, how
to live together, because you are children of peace -- the children who
chose sport over violence."
Meir Azram, one of the coordinators of the project, said the football
initiative aims to help children learn to live together by playing
together.
"In 12 years we've seen war and tension, but we know how to deal with
that," said Azram.
"The adult trainers from both sides sit down together and say what
they've lived through, then it's down to the kids to bond" through
sport.
Since its inception in east Jerusalem, the project has been extended
to include children from some 15 schools on both sides of Israel's
vast separation barrier that cuts off the West Bank.
Monday's tournament followed some of the worst violence in a decade.
As Israeli missiles rained down on Gaza for 50 days and Palestinian
rockets soared back over the border, the army carried out many arrests
and clashed in violent stand-offs with West Bank Palestinians
protesting against the operation.
But on the pitch on Monday, Israeli and Palestinian teammates overcame
the Arabic-Hebrew language barrier by signalling to each other and
just playing the beautiful game.
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