How Palestine's Baseball & Softball Federation came to exist

Mahmoud Tafesh explains how he founded and established Palestine’s Baseball and Softball Federation. 

“I took a little idea of playing baseball and returned to the Gaza strip where I started to train athletes to play the game,” Tafesh told Palestine in America from the Asia Championship in Taiwan in 2023. “I started watching baseball on YouTube and teaching myself the game through YouTube videos. I spent about a month learning the game and then I started to recruit players. I gathered about 50 players in Gaza.”

Their practices garnered attention from a friend of Tafesh’s in France. She reached out to the World Baseball Federation and told them about the Palestinian baseball players in Gaza.

The Palestine Baseball & Softball Federation became a full member of the World Baseball Federation in 2021, with Mahmoud’s brother Ahmad as president. Although Mahmoud is still involved with the team, he moved his family to Turkey to try and give them a safer and more prosperous life, away from the occupation’s ethnic cleansing and war mongering. 

Since the team’s inception, Palestine has competed in three international tournaments. Most notably, Palestine placed second in the West Asia Cup in 2023 and earned a spot in the Asia Championships later that year. 

Last November, Palestine competed in the Baseball United Arab Classic when they lost to UAE in the semi-finals.