Huda Abu Jazar is one of many Gazans huddled around a screen on nights when Palestine play in the Arab Cup – where the team coached by her son, Ihab, has made history by reaching the quarter-finals.
She has not seen her son in three years, due to Israel’s war sealing the borders. But during the tournament, she speaks to the manager and his players every day.
Ms Abu Jazar, 62, asks about the line-up, the training – things she never knew before, she laughs. “Despite everything we are living through, the team brought joy into our hearts,” she told The National. “My soul is attached to his. I pray he raises the name of Palestine even higher.”
TOPSHOT - Huda Abu Jazar (C), watches her son and captain of the Palestinian national football team, Ihab Abu Jazar, during the FIFA Arab Cup 2025 group stage, Group A, football match between Syria and Palestine in Qatar, as she sits with others in a displacement camp west of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip on December 7, 2025. Coach Ehab Abu Jazar is guiding a national team that carries on its shoulders all the hopes and sorrows of Palestinian football, but it is his mother, forced by war to live in a Gaza tent, who is his main inspiration and motivation. The war that broke out following Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 put an end to Palestinian league matches, and left athletes in exile fearing for their loved ones in Gaza. (Photo by BASHAR TALEB / AFP)
After opening the tournament with 1-0 win over hosts Qatar, Palestine rallied from two goals down to draw 2-2 with Tunisia before a 0-0 draw with Syria on Sunday night took them through as group winners. Their quarter-final opponents are yet to be decided.
"People tell me in the street: Your son made us proud," Ms Abu Jazar told The National. "We love him.
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