A pre-season friendly game between Israeli football team Maccabi Haifa and French club of Lille had to be stopped after pro-Palestinian protesters stormed the pitch in Austria.
Young supporters of Turkish origin carrying Turkish and Palestinian flags ran onto the field in Austrian town of Bischofshofen in the Tyrol region, where the game was played and attacked the Maccabi players, sparking ugly scenes.
The Maccabi players managed to leave the field unhurt. "It was a little bit using of force and then the police came and it took about 10 minutes before we succeeded to take all our players back to the dressing room. Nobody was injured,’’ one of the players said.
A Maccabi statement denounced the attack and violence. ‘’'This didn't happen because of sport or football, it happened because we are a team which represents Israel.'’ '’We believe in co-existence and tolerance.’’
"We came here for sport, for football. Our club is well known, we have in our club hundreds of Muslim players, in the A team we have five Muslim players as well as Jewish players and Christian players.’’
"We're not dealing with politics, we are a football team. In Haifa, we are living with peace with all religions. You can imagine by yourself the reason why (this group) was trying to spoil our camp.’’
The incident came amid growing anti-Semitism in Europe in the wake of Israel’s operation against Hamas in Gaza.