Al Arabi winger interrogated and threatened over his stints with the national team and playing in Qatar.

Palestinian winger Aladin Hassan says he was interrogated and threatened by Israeli authorities over his stint with the national team and Qatari side Al Arabi, according to an interview with Haaretz published on Monday.

The 25-year-old winger was subject to lengthy detention and was searched thoroughly upon his arrival at the Ben-Gurion Airport, and was summoned six days later to the Israeli Security Agency’s office for further questioning.

“The interrogation focused on my representation of the Palestinian national team,” he told Haaretz.

“The officers were visibly angry about my decision to join Al Arabi, accusing me of aligning with what they consider a ‘hostile state,’ referring to Qatar.”

Hassan joined the Qatar Stars League side from Israel’s Bnei Sakhnin in February of last year and has made 25 appearances for the club.

The winger was travelling to his hometown of Mashhad for his brother’s wedding from Doha when the initial searches took place on April 5.

“I was then taken for a lengthy interrogation by the Shin Bet inside the airport that lasted nearly nine continuous hours before I was released. They also confiscated my mobile phone, which they have yet to return,” he added.

On July 7, the Palestine Football Association released a statement detailing the player’s initial airport detention and condemning “Israel’s attempts to intimidate and punish athletes who represent Palestine”.

The encounter in the office of Shin Bet, one of the Israeli Intelligence Community’s three wings, was more gruelling, according to Hassan.

An officer threatened to end Hassan’s career and said that he’d already be stripped of his citizenship if it were up to him, which violates the Universal Declaration of Player Rights, rolled out by the global body representative organisation of professional footballers, FIFPro.

“They threatened to strip me of my nationality, to monitor me constantly, and to end my career. I was told I would remain under surveillance indefinitely,” Hassan said in the recent interview.

Shin Bet “categorically denied” Hassan’s version of events, particularly threats related to career and citizenship. The footballer was questioned, suspecting his links to “terrorist elements abroad,” the organisation told Haaretz.

‘Attempt to prosecute freedom‘

Hassan, born in the Arab-majority town of Mashhad, possesses an Israeli citizenship but chose to represent Palestine and earned his maiden call-up in 2023.

His recent incident is a “deliberate attempt to prosecute the freedom of political expression and sports diplomacy” concerning the Palestinian citizens of Israel, he added.

“This isn’t just about me. Many Arab athletes and individuals from our community are being harassed,” Haaretz quoted Hassan as saying.

“It’s my legal, national and moral right to represent Palestine. It’s also my right to play in Qatar, or any country I choose, and to refuse to represent Israel.”

Before joining the Qatari side, Hassan had spent most of his playing career in various Israeli clubs, including a stint in Israeli Premier League side Bnei Sakhnin.

After debuting for Hapoel Kaukab in 2021, he went on to represent Kafr Qasim and Hapoel Umm al-Fahm as well.

He has earned eight caps for the Palestinian national team so far and was a part of the squad that made it to the round of 16 of the AFC Asian Cup 2023 held in Qatar.

‘Worst kind of harassment’

Players with Israeli citizenship who have switched allegiances to represent Palestine have been subject to harassment in the past as well, according to Bassil Mikdadi of Football Palestine.

“It is quite clear that this is a threat of violence,” Mikdadi said in a recent episode of the independent blog’s FP Extra programme.

While footballers of Arab origins who choose to represent Israel are often tokenised when suited, they’re turned into immediate villains once they switch, he added.

Israeli ministers had previously requested to revoke the citizenship of Ataa Jaber, another Palestinian player with an Israeli passport, over his support for Gaza in the aftermath of October 7 in 2023.

Other Arab footballers and officials, who declared to represent Palestine, have also been the target of smear campaigns and institutional threats in the past. Palestinian football chief Jibril Rajoub was also detained by the Israeli authorities last year upon his return from the Paris Olympics.

“When a player decides against representing Israel because he is not Israeli and that he does not have anything to do with this genocidal apartheid state, they’re faced with the worst kind of harassment,” Mikdadi added.

This comes against the backdrop of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, which has killed more than 400 from the Palestinian football fraternity so far.

Similarly, Palestine’s bid to suspend Israel from international football over its complicity in the ongoing onslaught has been deferred multiple times by football’s global governing body.