Ireland’s players and coaching staff once more lowered their heads while Israel’s national anthem was played, this time before a Nations League game staged without fans at the TSC Arena in Bačka Topola, Serbia. Wearing black armbands as in the first meeting, Ireland skipped the customary handshakes at their own request, with goalkeeper Caoimhín Kelleher, captain in Dara O’Shea’s absence, shaking the referee’s hand but not that of Israel captain Dor Peretz.

In the first game in Debrecen, Hungary, O’Shea refused to shake hands with Israel’s Manor Solomon and pledged his entire earnings from that match to aid for Gaza. Reserve goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu sat out both games over his “personal belief that the killing of innocent people is wrong.”


In Ireland, where sympathy for Palestinians runs strong, more than 160 athletes signed an open letter urging the FAI to reconsider the fixtures, while the SIPTU union hung a giant banner along the River Liffey reading “Don’t play with genocide.”