Mohamed Al-Wahidi spent the 2026 World Cup giving Palestinians something almost incomprehensibly precious under the circumstances: a reason to sit together, watch soccer, and feel something other than grief. On Tuesday evening, minutes before Egypt faced Argentina, an Israeli missile killed him in his car. He was 33 years old. The screening went ahead anyway.
Who Al-Wahidi Was and What He Was Doing
Al-Wahidi was the public relations director of the Egyptian Relief Committee in Gaza, a humanitarian organization established by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to deliver aid into the territory. That was his day job. His World Cup project was something else entirely.
He organized public screenings of FIFA matches across the Gaza Strip, pulling Palestinians of all ages out of the rubble to sit on damaged buildings and bombed-out lots and watch the tournament being held in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Think about that image for a second. People who have lost their homes, their families, their water supply, gathering among the wreckage to watch soccer on a screen because someone decided that was worth making happen.
That someone was Al-Wahidi. And according to CBS News, he was killed in an Israeli missile strike on a car in Gaza City around dusk Tuesday, right as the Egypt-Argentina match was getting underway.
The Strike and Who Else Died
Dr. Mohamed Abu Selmiya, the director of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, told the Associated Press that four people died in the attack. Al-Wahidi. The driver, Ahmed Daghmush, 33 years old. And two brothers: Hamza al-Deri, 10, and Fari al-Deri, 8.
Two brothers. Ten and eight years old. Killed in a car on their way to, presumably, watch a soccer game.
The IDF told CBS News on Thursday that it "struck a terrorist in Hamas' military wing while he was traveling in a vehicle in the northern Gaza Strip." It acknowledged it was "aware of the claim that uninvolved civilians were harmed" and said the incident was "under review." The IDF said it "regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals."
That language, "uninvolved civilians," is doing a lot of work in that statement. Al-Wahidi's employer, the Egyptian Relief Committee in Gaza, mourned him as "a leading figure in community reconciliation" who was "known for his constant efforts to resolve disputes, serve his people, and strengthen the values of love, tolerance, and brotherhood." The IDF says he was a Hamas military operative. One of those characterizations ends with a missile.
The Screening Happened Anyway
Here is the part that will sit with you. After Al-Wahidi was killed, after the strike, after the chaos and the bodies and the hospital, the screening he organized still happened. CBS News reports that Palestinians gathered as planned to watch Egypt play Argentina.
There's no clean way to write about that. It's not triumphant. It's not defeat. It's just people in Gaza doing the only thing people in Gaza can do, which is keep existing in whatever form existing takes that day.
The Broader Count Nobody Is Talking About Enough
Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire in October 2025. Since then, CBS News reports, ongoing Israeli attacks have killed at least 1,084 people, including nine on Wednesday alone, according to local health officials.
Read that number again. Over a thousand people killed after a ceasefire. In a conflict that the world has largely decided to process in the background while the World Cup runs in the foreground. Egypt's coach Hossam Hassan, to his credit, broke away from pre-match tactical talk before the Argentina game to deliver what CBS News describes as an impassioned appeal for the people of Gaza and the West Bank. The coach of a team playing in a tournament saw a camera and used it. That's the bar we're at.
The Dingo Take
The IDF's statement here follows a pattern so worn it's practically a template. Strike a car. Kill multiple people. Identify one of them as a militant. Note with regret the presence of "uninvolved civilians." Open a review. Close the review. Repeat. At no point in that cycle does the world actually reckon with who the other people in the car were, or how old they were, or what they were doing that afternoon.
Mohamed Al-Wahidi was organizing World Cup watch parties for people living in rubble. Whatever the IDF says he was in his other life, that is also what he was. Hamza al-Deri was ten years old and, presumably, wanted to watch Egypt play Argentina. His brother Fari was eight. They do not get a ceasefire review. They get a line in a casualty count that the world has collectively decided is background noise to a soccer tournament.
More than a thousand people killed since a ceasefire that was supposed to mean something. The screenings are still going on in Gaza. Someone else will have to organize them now.
