Chilean Football Club Palestino Debuts Jersey Bearing Gaza
In Chile, football stands as more than a match when Palestino appears. Their new uniform shows a watermelon pattern that stands for Palestinian defiance, while a stone from Gaza – given before games – reminds them of their quest for peace plus roots.
The Watermelon Message
For the Chilean club Palestino, 90 minutes on the pitch mean far more than trying to outscore their rivals. Each match is a performance charged with cultural and political resonance, exemplified by their new away jersey featuring a watermelon motif. As club manager Diego Yunis told EFE, “We wanted to include it because, in many parts of the world, the Palestinian flag is currently censored, and that is unacceptable.”
In modern football, clubs occasionally don special kits for charity or historical tributes. Yet Palestino’s choice stems from something deeper: the fruit stands for a tradition of defying oppression. The story dates back to the 1967 Six-Day War when Israel forbade overt displays of Palestinian identity in Gaza and the West Bank. During that era, carrying or displaying the national flag was no longer permitted, forcing locals to discover subtler emblems. Enter the watermelon, with its interior hues of red and green, along with a white rind. These colors echoed the barred flag, turning the humble melon into an expression of solidarity, rebellion, and cultural pride.
Located in Santiago’s top-flight league, Palestino was founded in 1920 by immigrants from Palestine who had settled in Osorno, some 920 kilometers south of the Chilean capital. Over 100 years later, the staff and players still use the club’s stage to bring attention to Palestinian causes. In the stands, supporters hold up kufiyas with banners that honor their heritage, which is a display that links loyalty to identity. Having once faced attempts to censor their own use of the Palestinian flag, the team sees its on-pitch displays of color and symbolism as indispensable acts of resistance.
A Stone From Gaza
Beyond the vibrant fruit-themed jersey, Palestino’s message extends to another, more somber symbol: a hunk of rock that made a 13,000-kilometer journey from war-torn Gaza to Chile. A video supplied to the media states that the stone came from a Palestinian home ruined in Gaza. It now crosses football stadiums as a sign of endurance. The act of giving it to the opposing team’s captain, combined with a banner swap, shows the club’s wish to display the difficulties of uprooted Palestinian families.
During their victorious Copa Sudamericana qualifier against Universidad Católica, Palestino’s captain, Bryan Carrasco, presented the stone to his counterpart. “It’s a very special detail so that rival teams carry a piece of history with them,” Carrasco said in the same video. “Very few times do you see gestures like this in football.” According to the club, the stone’s passage from hand to hand mirrors the experience of countless Palestinians uprooted by conflict—generations forced to traverse unfamiliar land in search of security.
Chile is home to the largest Palestinian diaspora outside the Middle East, estimated at around half a million people. Often surpassing even countries like Egypt or Lebanon in terms of emigrant population, Chile offers a supportive environment where Palestinian heritage can flourish. Yet the same historical challenges remain: questions of identity, displacement, and the longing for a peace that seems perpetually out of reach. By symbolically placing a shard of someone’s destroyed home in the hands of a rival club, Palestino insists that football can serve as a bridge between the heartbreak of conflict zones and the global stage of professional sport.
In many of their matches, players from Palestino have staged tributes reminiscent of absent presences. In May 2024, before a domestic league match, they walked onto the field holding each other’s hands, although no children were present. This act paid respect to the young lives lost in Gaza. In a time of sadness and anger, this clear sign of lost innocence reached many in Chilean football, which brought both respect and dispute.
Tradition, Resistance, And The Future
Over the last decade, Palestino has heightened its connection to the Palestinian territories through various initiatives. According to Yunis, “We’ve strengthened the bond with Palestine a lot in the last 15 years by opening football academies over there, organizing tours of our squad, and giving talks to our players.” Currently, the club maintains educational outreach programs in Ramallah, Bethlehem, and Gaza itself—an attempt to promote youth development in regions constrained by political and economic hurdles.
Such an unorthodox blend of activism, heritage, and sporting prowess has drawn international attention. When the team debuted a controversial jersey some years back, it featured the shape of Palestine inside the numeral “1” on the players’ backs, a design that spurred sanctions by the Chilean football federation. Those behind the kit defended it as an essential affirmation of identity in the face of erasure.
In early 2024, the “Green Brigade” shirt, co-designed with Celtic of Scotland—well-known for its pro-Palestinian fanbase—reignited debate. Critics argued that mixing politics with sport only intensifies existing divisions. Yet supporters hailed it as an important statement of solidarity across borders. For Palestino, ignoring politics, even on the pitch, would be a denial of its origins.
Chilean football, in general, is no stranger to protest or symbolism. Clubs often align themselves with various causes, particularly when these have deep cultural or historical roots among fans. While some question whether a sports institution should adopt roles that veer from the purely athletic, Palestino’s leadership contends it cannot remain silent when heritage is at stake. A watermelon-themed uniform, after all, maybe flamboyant, but behind that bold design is a historical weight echoing decades of exile, perseverance, and longing.
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Each weekend match in the Chilean Primera División thus becomes something more profound for Palestino’s faithful. They shout when a team scores yet also support signs in color, fruit, and stone, a blend of art and protest that makes viewers look past the usual game period. In the end, the mix of customs, unity, and hope proves how a sport may show a community’s wish for calm, free times ahead. As long as the ball keeps rolling, Palestino is determined to pass along that hope, one wave of the kufiya and one stone from Gaza at a time.
