Pressure on Italy and Norway to exclude Israel from the World Cup over the war in Gaza: "Our dream is to stay in the competition."

Pro-Palestinian protests against the Israel-Premier Tech team over the situation in Gaza have had a domino effect that extends to football, especially given the presence of the Israeli national football team in one of the European qualifying groups for the 2026 World Cup. The Middle Eastern team shares a group with Norway, Estonia, Moldova, and Italy, to whom they lost (4-5) at home on Monday in a match played in Debrecen, Hungary. The crazy result was preceded by protests from the Italian fans and a response from the Israeli spectators, who were not immune to radical protests.

The Italian Coaches Association has written to FIFA to request that Israel be removed. Meanwhile, the Norwegian Football Association, which faces Israel during the international break next October, has announced that it will donate all proceeds from the match against the Israeli team to organizations helping victims of Gaza. "No one can remain indifferent to the disproportionate attacks Israel is carrying out on the civilian population of Gaza," said Federation President Lise Klaveness .

The statement, which is in line with the Scandinavian government's stance on the war in Gaza, was met with a response from the Federation of Israel: "Make sure that money doesn't reach terrorist organizations," they said, in a quote from The Telegraph .

Playing away from home

The match between Israel and Norway is beginning to become fraught with tension due to the Norwegian public's anti-Israeli stance on the conflict in Gaza, and it appears that it could affect the match itself. In fact, the Israeli Football Association has reported that Norwegian authorities will not allow the national team to enter the country until the day before the match for security reasons, something they claim will hinder their preparations.

On the sporting front, neither the Israeli nor Palestinian national teams are playing their home matches on home soil. Palestine, already eliminated from the World Cup race, has played its last matches as host in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Qatar, while Israel has played in the Hungarian cities of Debrecen and Budapest.

"Right now, the dream is to stay in the competition. I know there are a lot of people pointing fingers at us, but I also know that our Federation is making great efforts to keep us playing," said Israeli coach Ben Shimon .

Infantino calls for restoring peace

The Palestinian Football Association, for its part, has been calling for Israel's exclusion from sports competitions for years, something that doesn't seem likely. UEFA and FIFA remain on the sidelines of the conflict, and their only statements on the situation in Gaza are calls for peace and unity. "We call on the parties to restore peace in the region," Infantino said in one of his recent appearances.

In February last year, UEFA General Secretary Theodore Theodoridis stated that "UEFA has no intention of taking a similar decision to that in Russia because the situations are different."

Recall that Russian teams were excluded from the competitions four days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Along with them, the other two countries not participating in tournaments are Eritrea, a decision by the authorities due to concerns that players might defect when playing abroad due to the country's political situation, and Congo, which was suspended in February of this year due to irregularities in the management of its federation.