After weeks of speculation, Jordan’s national basketball team informed the international basketball federation, FIBA, that it will not field a team against Israel on Sunday in the 2025 Under-19 Basketball World Cup due to the ongoing war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Israel will automatically gain a 20-0 technical victory over Jordan. It defeated hosts Switzerland handily 102-77 the night before in its first-ever U-19 World Cup game, while Jordan fell 69:79 to the Dominican Republic, the other team in its group.
During Israel’s game against Switzerland, a protester burst onto the court waving a Palestinian flag.
While the Jordanians could have been booted from the contest for their action, FIBA chose not to take measures at this time in order not to disrupt the first-round playoffs in the contest, which started Saturday.
The Israel-Jordan game had been scheduled for the evening at the Cooly Arena in Lausanne.
“On behalf of the Basketball Association, I regret the decision of the Jordanian team,” Israel Basketball Association chairman Amos Frishman said in a statement.
“I had hoped that the Jordanians would still come to play to show everyone that things can be different, especially during this time. I believe that sports is a bridge between peoples and cultures and not a political arena. I hope that in the future there will be no doubt about holding these games.”
Two weeks ago, the Kan public broadcaster reported that Jordanian officials were coming under pressure from a campaign by pro-Palestinian activists to boycott the game against Israel after the two teams were put in the same group. However, no formal announcement was made. At the time, a Jordanian source told the broadcast that a boycott would aim to “prevent a big political storm.”
The Gaza war was triggered on October 7, 2023, when the Palestinian terror group Hamas led thousands of gunmen to invade southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting 251 to Gaza as hostages. Of those, 50 remain in captivity, the majority of them believed dead.
Jordan has witnessed some of the biggest rallies across the region as anti-Israel sentiment runs high in Arab countries over the war in Gaza.
In November 2024, a gunman opened fire near the Israeli embassy in Jordan, injuring three policemen. The attacker was killed.
There have been other incidents of sports teams protesting against their Israeli counterparts due to the war.
In April, Israel’s under-23 fencing team won a gold medal at the European Championships in Estonia, but the Swiss team they defeated turned their backs during the Israeli national anthem.
Pro-Palestinian activists also lobbied the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) to have Israel suspended from international contests due to the war. In July last year, FIFA postponed making a decision on the matter, which cleared the way for Israel to participate in the soccer tournament at the Paris Olympics.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 53,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it had killed some 20,000 combatants in battle as of January and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 onslaught.
Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas, including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 440. The toll includes two police officers and three Defense Ministry civilian contractors.
Agencies contributed to this report.