By Monica Moorehead
September 30, 2026

As more and more celebrities become increasingly outspoken in their solidarity with Palestine and against the U.S.-backed genocide carried out by Zionist Israel, there are also a growing number of Black professional athletes who are expressing their support for Palestine.

One such athlete is Azeez Al-Shaair, a Black linebacker with the National Football League’s Houston Texans, who not once but twice wrote the names of Hind Rajab and Wafaa Akila on his eye black during weeks one and two of the NFL season. Both Rajab and Akila, ages five and eight respectively, were murdered by the Israeli occupying forces along with tens of thousands of other Palestinian children.

Rajab was killed on Jan. 29, 2024, when the Israeli military shot 300 bullets in a car where she was waiting for help, and Akila was killed on Sept. 6, along with her father, in an airstrike.

Al-Shaair was fined by the NFL $11,941 for violating its uniform rules for the first week. However, that did not stop him from repeating this same act the second week. Al-Shaair stated that the fine was a small price to pay for exposing what is happening to children in Gaza.

In speaking about Akila’s death, he stated: “Yeah, I don’t think everybody knows what it’s about. That was the point. Before that, probably most of you guys didn’t know who she was, and that’s kinda the point. There’s a lot that goes on in the world, overseas, right here in our own country.

“There’s a lot of issues that I speak on that really shine a light, because a lot of people don’t care nothing about it. We’re blessed to have the comforts of living in the United States. Not having to worry about certain things. There’s issues here and all over the world that … when you talk about what happened with Hind Rajab and the family, those are tax-paying dollars that us Americans are paying that are being used to bomb innocent men, women, and children. So, that’s really what that was about.” (Football Forever, Sept. 18)

Amputated Palestinian children and their families attended the first Texans game as Al-Shaair’s guests.

Kyrie Irving, a Black guard for the National Basketball Association’s Dallas Mavericks, publicly offered to pay Al-Shaair’s fine. Irving has expressed his own solidarity with Palestine by wearing a keffiyah during post-game press conferences. Irving has also shown his solidarity with Indigenous nations.

Along with Irving, other NBA players expressing solidarity with Palestine are Jaylen Brown, Jerami Grant, Scottie Barnes, Victor Wembanyama, Julian Champagnie, Damian Lillard, Rudy Gobert and Jaden McDaniels.  The NFL is now threatening to suspend Al-Shaair for his heroic actions.  He must be defended by the movement.

These acts of solidarity, similar to those of rapper Macklemore, who was banned from performing with Ed Sheeran’s concerts by New England Patriots owner, pro-Zionist Robert Kraft, reflect the love and respect millions of people have for the strength and resolve of the Palestinian people and their resistance to continue to fight for their national liberation and sovereignty against unimaginable heinous war crimes against their humanity.