Uefa accused of promoting Jewish ‘blood libel' with ‘Stop Killing Children' banner
The large display was placed in front of Tottenham Hotspur and Paris St-Germain players as they lined up before kick-off at Stadio Friuli in Udine, Italy.
Two refugee children from Gaza also took part in the medal ceremony alongside Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin, days after Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah took aim at the governing body over a tribute to late Palestinian forward Suleiman al-Obeid.
The Campaign Against Antisemitism condemned the display, which took place amid Israel's ongoing military response to the October 7, 2023 terrorist attacks on the country.
A spokesperson said: 'Uefa has said nothing about the Jewish hostages kept in barbaric captivity for almost two years, nor about the incessant attacks on Israeli civilians throughout this war from terrorists in Gaza and throughout the Middle East.
'But all of sudden, they have chosen a Spurs match – a club commonly associated with the Jewish community – to unfurl a banner reading 'Stop killing children - Stop killing civilians'. For centuries, Europe has traded in the blood libel that Jews kill children, and clearly the trope remains as popular as ever. Uefa says that 'the message is clear'.
'After two years with no acknowledgement of the Jewish children murdered, maimed and traumatised by this war, the message is clear indeed. This selective outrage tells us everything about the double standard that still poisons European discourse on Jews.'
Among the hostages taken on October 7, 2023, was British-Israeli Spurs fan Emily Demari.
Supporters of the club helped campaign for her release and she was freed in January before making an emotional return to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in May.
Uefa has been approached for comment.
Former Jewish Leadership Council chief executive, Simon Johnson, whose children live in Israel, told Telegraph Sport: 'Jews get very, very, very anxious when they see signs that say 'Stop Killing Children' because, in the runs of anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish literature and iconography, the killing of babies by Jews for ritual purposes is one of those hideous accusations that has been levelled at Jews for hundreds of years by the worst anti-Semites.
'Unfortunately, those who are of an anti-Semitic nature do now apply the same criticism to Israel. Simply say, 'You're killing children. You're child killers'. There's no army in the world – certainly not the Israeli army – that sets out to kill children. There's no army in the world that kills civilians.'
He added: 'It is very easy to sit in south-west Switzerland and decide that you want to sloganise all of the world's most complex, intractable and emotive conflicts and to boil it down to an accusation – if indeed that's what they were making, but it's certain implied – that one nation's army is deliberately killing children and deliberately killing civilians.'
Uefa previously announced that one of the children involved in the medal ceremony would be a 12-year-old girl called Tala, who it described as 'a young Palestinian girl with fragile health who was transferred to Milan to receive appropriate medical care, as the adequate equipment was lacking in Gaza after the start of the war'.
The other child in the ceremony was Mohamed, a nine-year-old who lost his parents in the war following an airstrike in Gaza.
Under its own rules, Uefa states that political messages cannot be promoted in stadiums before, during or after matches. It had children from conflict zones in Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Palestine and Ukraine involved in the opening ceremony and did not name a specific war with its banner.
Last week, Uefa paid tribute to Obeid, known as the 'Palestinian Pelé', who the Palestinian Football Association said was killed when Israeli forces opened fire on civilians waiting for humanitarian aid.
The tribute read: 'Farewell to Suleiman al-Obeid, the 'Palestinian Pelé'. A talent who gave hope to countless children, even in the darkest of times.'
Egypt captain Salah quoted the tribute in his own post on X, adding: 'Can you tell us how he died, where, and why?'
A former player of the Khadamat Al-Shati club in Gaza, Obeid played in 24 internationals for Palestine.
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