Washington DC - President Donald Trump's administration confirmed that it was actively working to shield Israel's national soccer team from a potential 2026 World Cup ban.

With a consensus building internationally that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, Sky Sports reported that European soccer's governing body, UEFA, is set to discuss banning Israeli teams from all its competitions.

That would also affect Israel's national side, which competes in the UEFA qualifying section for next year's World Cup, hosted jointly by the US, Canada, and Mexico.

But the Trump administration, which has fully backed the destruction of Gaza, said it would again intervene to protect its ally, as it has done at every turn.

"We will absolutely work to fully stop any effort to attempt to ban Israel's national soccer team from the World Cup," a State Department official told Sky Sport.

A significant number of European soccer federations are reportedly in favor of a ban, as anger at Israel's mass killing and starvation campaign in Gaza reaches fever pitch.

Of the tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians killed in Israeli attacks over the past 24 months, over 1,000 were athletes, according to the Palestine Olympic Committee.

Soccer, by some distance the most popular sport in Palestine, has been particularly hard hit, with hundreds of youth and senior players among the victims. Israeli forces have also destroyed most stadiums and at one point converted Gaza's biggest arena into a mass detention camp.

But the issues can be traced farther back than October 7. Human rights groups and experts have pointed out that teams from illegal West Bank settlements compete in Israel's top league, potentially breaching both UEFA and FIFA regulations, while Israeli authorities regularly stop Palestinian footballers and clubs from travelling to games.

UEFA has issued blanket bans in the past, with all Russian teams being excluded from its competitions in the wake of Moscow's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.