Imad Abu Tima was killed with nine members of his family   (X) Abu Tima represented the Palestinian national under-20 team in 2021 and currently played for the Ittihad Khan Younis club.    Photo: @leylahamed.

Khan Younis, October 16 (RHC)-- Another massacre by the Israeli occupation army against Palestinian sport occurred the day before with the murder of midfielder Imad Abu Tima, a national team player who played for Ittihad Khan Younis.

Imad Abu Tima, a 21-year-old Palestinian footballer, was killed along with nine members of his family in an Israeli airstrike in the east of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian National Olympic Committee said Abu Tima is one of more than 400 Palestinian athletes killed in the Gaza Strip since the start of the ongoing Zionist massacre in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Abu Tima represented the Palestinian national under-20 team in 2021 and currently played for the Ittihad Khan Younis club.   In July this year, the Palestinian Football Association reported that at least 245 football players had been killed in Israeli attacks, including 69 children and 176 young men.

​​Jibril Rajoub, president of the aforementioned association, during the 74th FIFA Congress held on May 17 in Bangkok (Thailand) denounced the systematic violations of the organization's statutes by the Zionist Israeli entity, and asked the organization to vote to ban Israel from participating in international football activities.

The news of the young footballer's murder comes in the context in which FIFA continues to delay the vote on the ban on Israel from competing.

On October 3, the international organization said: "The FIFA Disciplinary Committee will have the mandate to initiate an investigation into the alleged crime of discrimination raised by the Palestinian Federation," news welcomed by the Palestinian association, but to date no other statements have been made.

Israel has destroyed dozens of sports facilities in its attacks on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, destruction that adds to the athletes killed, and the devastation of most of the civilian infrastructure in the occupied territories.

The Pan-Arab newspaper Middle East Eye in February shared testimonies from those who witnessed Israeli forces turning a football stadium in the northern Gaza neighborhood of Shuja’iyya into a makeshift interrogation and torture camp for Palestinian detainees.