The Palestinian Media Watch group reported soccer teams within the Palestinian Territories Authority are named after infamous suicide bombers. Teams in the tournament at Al-Quds University in the Abu Dis section of the West Bank had the following names:
- Yaha Ayyash, widely credited with being the father of Palestinian suicide terror attacks. Ayyash is often referred to as, “The Engineer.”
- Ghassan Kanafani, a former leader of terror group, The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) who has planned and carried out numerous attacks against civilians on Israel since 1967.
- Dalal Mughrabi, a female suicide bomber revered for leading a 1978 attack in Israel in which a public bus was hijacked and 37 civilians were killed, including 12 children.
A team in another tournament was named after Ziyad Da’as.
Ziyad Da’as was a commander of Tanzim, a Fatah terror faction, and planned a terror attack at a Bat-Mitzvah celebration in Hadera on Jan. 17, 2002, in which a terrorist gunman killed six and wounded dozens. Da’as also participated in the kidnapping and murder of Etgar Zeituni and Motti Dayan in Tulkarem in January 2001. Da’as was killed during a fire exchange with Israeli military police in August 2002.
Reporting from the tournament that included a team named after Da’as, the official PA daily wrote:
“At the end of the special tournament, the heroic Martyrs who fulfilled their duty to the homeland were honored… Muhammad Tamouni, the Martyr’s brother, dedicated the big win and the tournament’s success to the souls of his brother and all of Palestine’s Martyrs, who are more honorable than all of us. Tamouni said that this tournament will continue to take place annually in order to remember the heroes whom we will never forget.
These teams do not show any shame naming their teams after these murderers.
“The fact that Palestinians name their football teams after terrorists and mass murderers should come as no surprise,” David Horowitz, Director of the Horowitz Freedom Center told FoxNews.com. “The Palestinian Authority declares the killers of Jewish children national heroes and calls for the elimination of the state of Israel.
“If we were not so cowardly and described these monsters in the terms they deserve, no one would be surprised about the names they give their football teams,” Horowitz added.