{"id":137591,"date":"2026-07-04T07:15:53","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T13:15:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/egypts-coach-waved-palestinian-flag-after-winning-world-cup-game\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T07:15:53","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T13:15:53","slug":"egypts-coach-waved-palestinian-flag-after-winning-world-cup-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/egypts-coach-waved-palestinian-flag-after-winning-world-cup-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Egypt&#8217;s coach waved Palestinian flag after winning World Cup game"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CAIRO, Egypt (AP) \u2014 Egypt coach Hossam Hassan waved a Palestinian flag on the pitch after his team&#8217;s victory over Australia in the World Cup, saying he was dedicating it to both Egyptians and Palestinians.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy heart and soul are with them,\u201d he said in an emotional post-game interview.<\/p>\n<p>Egypt won its debut in the elimination round of the <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/fifa-world-cup\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">World Cup<\/a> by beating Australia 4-2 on penalty kicks after a 1-1 draw in the round of 32 Friday.<\/p>\n<p>The victory comes in Egypt\u2019s fourth World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>A video of Hassan on social media shows him walking around the pitch holding the flag as people chanted \u201cfree free Palestine.&#8221; The video went viral.<\/p>\n<p>The fate of more than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza, largely displaced and living amid ruins, remains uncertain after a war that began when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel\u2019s retaliation has killed a total of 73,066 Palestinians, according to Gaza\u2019s Health Ministry.<\/p>\n<p>The war has sparked pro-Palestinian protests around the world, with some athletes also expressing solidarity.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this year Lamine Yamal waved a Palestinian flag during celebrations of the Spanish league title. The act caused backlash from Israel&#8217;s defense minister, who criticized Barcelona\u2019s teenage star and said his action \u201cincites hate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hassan is not known to be religious or connected to any political group. In the 1980s and 1990s he was adored by the youth, a street footballer who played in the slums.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday he said he was dedicating the game to the \u201cgood and noble\u201d Egyptian and Palestinian people.<\/p>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t immediately clear if FIFA would seek to take any action, and it didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment. It has previously sought to restrict what it sees as political statements on the pitch.<\/p>\n<p>During the Qatar World Cup in 2022, some European teams were prevented from wearing armbands in support of the \u201cOne Love\u201d campaign, an international anti-discrimination initiative.<\/p>\n<p>During Iran&#8217;s matches in this World Cup, some Iranian Americans in Los Angeles sought to display the country&#8217;s pre-revolutionary flag and block a FIFA ban on that flag. They lost in court, and the ban was upheld.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CAIRO, Egypt (AP) \u2014 Egypt coach Hossam Hassan waved a Palestinian flag on the pitch after his team&#8217;s victory over Australia in the World Cup, saying he was dedicating it to both Egyptians and Palestinians. \u201cMy heart and soul are with them,\u201d he said in an emotional post-game interview. Egypt won its debut in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5734],"tags":[],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-137591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-associated-press"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137591\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137591"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=137591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}