German football club Mainz announced today, Friday, the termination of its contract with its Dutch striker of Moroccan origin, Anwar El Ghazi, due to his insistence on expressing his solidarity with the sector. Gaza AndPalestineAnd called on him, through his personal accounts on social networking sites, to stop the Israeli aggression.
Mainz, which is in last place in the German Football League, confirmed that the player’s contract had been terminated immediately, two days after Al-Ghazi (28 years old) announced the day before yesterday, Wednesday, on his Instagram account, that he did not regret supporting Gaza, denying his apology to the club.
Mainz decided to stop Al-Ghazi on October 17, when he expressed support for the Palestinian cause and his refusal to kill civilians in Gaza. He also repeated the support in another post in which he said, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be liberated.” Mainz justified this by saying that the player took “a position on the conflict in “The Middle East in a way that is unacceptable to the club.”
Last Monday, Mainz stated that he had lifted the suspension of Al-Ghazi, and that he would give him another chance, indicating that he apologized for his previous statements.
But Al-Ghazi responded to the club in another post the day before yesterday, Wednesday, in which he denied offering any apology, saying, “The comments or apologies attributed to me (after a previous post from last October 27) are not factually correct, and I did not declare or agree to them.”
He added, “I do not regret it, nor do I feel any remorse. I do not distance myself from what I said, and I stand today, always, and until the end of my life, with humanity and the oppressed.”
It is noteworthy that for 28 days, the Israeli occupation army has continued intensive bombardment of residential neighborhoods and hospitals, bringing the toll of the aggression today, Friday, to 9,227 martyrs – including 3,826 children and 2,405 women – in addition to 23,000 injured and more than 2,000 missing.
