Mahmoud Kamal Abdel-Malek

Abdel-Malek was killed on Tuesday 10 November 2026, aged 20, when an Israeli air strike hit him on Al-Maghribi Street in the Sabra neighbourhood of southern Gaza City. The Palestinian Football Association announced his death the same day and said he was the 1,017th person from the Palestinian sports community to be killed since October 2023. Gaza Sports Club announced it on social media, writing that its club legend and first team goalkeeper had been killed moments earlier.

The news was reported by Al Jazeera, the Anadolu Agency, Al-Quds and Turkiye Today, among others. It followed by a few days the killing of 15 year old footballer Mohammed Nidal Barbakh in Al-Mawasi, Khan Younis. Funeral arrangements were not reported.

Mahmoud Kamal Fares Abdel-Malek was 20 years old at the time of his death, according to the Palestinian Football Association, which would place his birth in about 2006. He grew up in Gaza. His date and place of birth, his schooling and details of his family have not been published in the reports of his death.

Abdel-Malek played as a goalkeeper for Gaza Sports Club, one of the oldest and best known football clubs in Gaza City, and became the first team's captain and first choice goalkeeper. The club later described him as a club legend.

Organised football in Gaza was suspended for a long period after the war began in October 2023, and much of the territory's sporting infrastructure was destroyed. Football returned with the Thousand Martyrs Cup, a tournament organised by the Palestinian Football Association and named after the more than 1,000 athletes and sports officials killed since October 2023. It began on 4 September 2026 with more than 200 teams from Gaza, the West Bank and Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. Abdel-Malek kept goal for Gaza Sports Club as the team reached the final of the Gaza and Northern Gaza division on 5 November 2026, finishing as runners-up.

No details of Abdel-Malek's personal or family life have been made public in the reporting of his death. He was known publicly through his club, Gaza Sports Club, and through his part in the Thousand Martyrs Cup.

Abdel-Malek's death five days after the Thousand Martyrs Cup final drew attention to the tournament's purpose of honouring Palestinian athletes killed in the war, a list to which he was then added. Palestinian Football Association president Jibril Rajoub said the tournament showed that Palestinians had not lost their belief that sport would remain a symbol of hope and life. Abdel-Malek is remembered by his club as its young captain and goalkeeper.