Ireland players bow heads during Israeli anthem as Israel wear black armbands

Players from Ireland's national football team lowered their heads while Israel's national anthem was played before their match against Israel, according to Israeli news outlets. The news site Ynet flagged the moment in a short alert, opening it with the word "again", and News.co.il reported the same scene using a phrase that translates as "this time too".

Israel's own players took the field wearing black armbands. News.co.il said the armbands commemorated the victims of October 7, presenting the gesture as a reply to what it called antisemites. Israel's Foreign Ministry, posting on its official account on X, criticised the Irish players and linked the armbands to a former professional footballer it said was among those killed.

What the Foreign Ministry said

The Foreign Ministry is the Israeli government department responsible for diplomacy and the country's public messaging abroad. Its English language account on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, regularly comments on international events involving Israel.

In its post, the ministry accused unnamed parties of turning the pitch into a political stage and said that for Israel the matter was personal. It then set two years side by side. It wrote that in 1939 Irish players had raised their arms in a salute to Nazi Germany, and that in 2026 Irish players had bowed their heads during Israel's anthem. It summed up the comparison as "Different generations. The same moral blindness."

The ministry said Israel's players were wearing the black armbands in memory of people killed by Hamas on October 7, and named one of them: Lior Asulin, whom it described as a former professional footballer. It closed with a play on words, saying some people have "skin in the game" while others only make a show of it.

The reports do not give any further detail about the 1939 episode the ministry cited, and the ministry's post does not explain where or in what fixture it took place.

Why the anthem matters

National anthems are played before international football matches, and players from both sides normally stand in line facing the crowd while they are performed. How players behave during the opposing team's anthem is visible to everyone in the stadium and on television, which is why a collective gesture by one squad tends to be read as a statement.

The two Hebrew outlets both framed the Irish gesture as a repeat. Ynet's alert began with the Hebrew word shuv, meaning "again", and News.co.il used gam hapa'am, meaning "this time too". Neither alert describes the earlier occasion they appear to refer to.

October 7 and the armbands

October 7 refers to the attack on Israel by Hamas, the armed group that controls the Gaza Strip, in which large numbers of people were killed. The date has become shorthand in Israel for the attack and its victims, and black armbands are a common way for sports teams to mark mourning or remembrance.

According to News.co.il, the Israeli squad wore the armbands specifically for the October 7 victims. The Foreign Ministry gave the same reason and added the name of Lior Asulin. Neither source says whether the armbands were arranged in advance with match officials or whether they were a response to the anthem episode.

How the sources framed it

The accounts agree on the basic facts: Irish players bowed their heads during the Israeli anthem, and Israeli players wore black armbands for October 7 victims. They differ in tone. Ynet's alert was a single factual line. News.co.il used the word "antisemites" in its headline on the armbands. The Foreign Ministry drew a direct comparison with a salute to Nazi Germany. None of the reports includes a response from the Irish players, the Irish team or Irish officials, so the reason behind the gesture is given only through Israeli interpretation.

What the reports do not say

The material does not state the result of the match, the competition it belonged to, or the stadium and city where it was played. It does not identify any individual Irish player, say whether the whole squad took part, or quote anyone from the Irish side explaining the gesture. It does not describe the earlier occasion implied by the word "again". It gives no detail about Lior Asulin beyond the Foreign Ministry's description of him as a former professional footballer, and it does not say whether football's governing bodies have commented on either team's actions.