Tributes have been paid to a 20-year-old Palestinian football player, who spent time in Ireland when he was a boy, after his death in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza yesterday.
Muhammad Khalifa and seven other members of his family were killed after an Israeli airstrike targeted their home at the Nuseirat refugee camp.
Known to his friends as Khalifa, he first spent time in Ireland in 2016 aged 12 and playing soccer as part of a charity trip organised by Gaza Action Ireland.
He also visited the following year.
Muhammad had been a member of the Palestinian national youth team, along with his brother Mahmoud, who was also killed.
Zoe Lawlor, chair of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, was among those involved in the charity trip, and described Muhammad as "brilliant", a fantastic football player and a great person who was full of fun and joy.
"We just had a lovely time with them while they were here, and they loved Ireland," she said.
Ms Lawlor explained that while in Ireland, the children from Gaza played against teams from League of Ireland clubs.
In 2017, they were invited to a game between Shamrock Rovers and Derry City in Tallaght Stadium as part of the Gaza Kids to Tallaght initiative.
"The President asked to meet them specifically, and we had a big gathering with all the kids and the coaches... it was really lovely," Ms Lawlor said.
Ms Lawlor said she started to receive messages yesterday saying Muhammad had been killed.
His death was also confirmed by his football club, Al-Hilal.
The Palestinian Football Association has said that over 350 football players have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war last year.
Ms Lawlor said 1,400 Palestinian families in Gaza have been completely wiped from the civil registry, while over 3,000 people have only one surviving member of their family.
"Everyone I know there is dealing with multiple losses and grief, it's really horrendous. At least 50 or 60 killed every day in Gaza and that usually means extended family.
"It's just devastating the scale of loss."
She said that everyone who knew Muhammad Khalifa said that he was always talking about his time in Ireland and how much he loved it and wanted to come back.
"They felt so loved here," she said.
She said that those she has kept in contact with in Gaza are heartbroken by the news.
One contact told her that this is the reality of being in Gaza at the moment, that you could be alive today and dead tomorrow.
"It's just appalling that someone so young would have that reality facing them."
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