NINETY MINUTES OF BREATHING: Gaza and the World Cup

Maybe it’s just a game to you — ninety minutes of football, the quest for yet another victory and a trophy that will soon fade from memory. Maybe it’s more.  Maybe a surge of national pride, a chance to leave a mark on the global sporting stage. But wherever you find yourself during this World Cup, few will experience it as fiercely and as desperately, as the people of Gaza. For them, each match is ninety minutes of breathing — a brief return to normality in the midst of unrelenting hardship.

In Gaza, life is measured in the echoes of explosions, the sounds of drones, the daily shortages, and the relentless search for the next meal. Days blur into one another under the weight of loss, and nights echo with the memories of homes that no longer stand. Yet even here — in one of the most wounded places on earth — the human spirit still reaches for moments of relief.

And strangely, beautifully, one of those moments arrives with the World Cup.

For many in Gaza, a football match is not merely a game. It is a window — a small, fragile opening through which life feels briefly normal again. When the whistle blows and the match begins, something shifts. For ninety minutes, the rubble fades. The hunger quiets. The grief loosens its grip just enough for people to breathe.  Ninety minutes of escape. Ninety minutes of remembering joy. Ninety minutes of feeling human again.

In conflict zones, these moments matter more than we realise. Those who seek to crush the human spirit understand this well: eliminate relief, and despair does the rest. It is like holding a person’s head under water — remove every breath, and eventually the soul drowns. But allow even a single breath, and the human spirit begins to rise again.

That is why the World Cup matters in Gaza. Not because football solves anything, but because it reminds people that they are still alive. It gives fathers a reason to smile with their sons, and mothers a moment to forget the weight they carry. It gives young people a chance to dream beyond the borders of their suffering.

Sport cannot rebuild homes or end wars. But it can keep hope alive long enough for people to endure. And sometimes, endurance is its own quiet victory.

In Gaza, ninety minutes is not just a match. It is mercy. It is resistance. It is breath.

Pictures from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2026/jul/08/gazas-world-cup-screenings-in-pictures