Israeli detains two Palestinian women national team players

Israeli authorities have detained two members of the Palestinian women's national football team, prompting condemnation from the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) and calls for intervention by FIFA. Rand Halawani, a 20-year-old current player, was arrested in Jerusalem on Tuesday. An Israeli court has extended her detention at least until Friday.

Israeli police stated that Halawani’s arrest relates to an incident where objects were allegedly thrown from a rooftop at demonstrators in Jerusalem earlier this week. Officials identified her as a suspect in that incident. Separately, former national team player Natalie Abu Diyeh, a 21-year-old student at Birzeit University, was detained along with three other young Palestinian women in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday. Israeli military authorities said the four women are suspected of promoting terrorist activities and additional terrorist-related activities, though specific details of the allegations have not been publicly provided.

In a statement, the PFA denounced the arrests, describing them as part of what it calls a well-documented pattern of systematic targeting of Palestinian athletes. The association said Palestinian...