IDF Guards Sick of Returning Lost West Bank Footballs

Sporting ministers in the West Bank this morning issued a plea to the Israeli Defence Force to please return their lost footballs.

Dozen of balls have been accidentally kicked across the dividing wall between the West Bank and Israel over the past few years and IDF soldiers have become increasingly frustrated at having to return them each time.

The IDF issued an official statement in early December declaring the start of Operation Grumpy Neighbour, a new security tactic that instructed its border guards to refuse to return of any footballs that came over the wall from the Palestinian side. Since then, several sources estimate that number to have across has already reached double figures.

“We simply can’t afford to keep supplying our children with new footballs each time,” said the Palestinian Authorities sports minister, Mahmoud Vickers. “Surely, it can’t be that much to ask for the IDF to kick them back over and we’ll be taking our appeal to the UN.”

The IDF declined to comment, but commentators have speculated that the footballs were being impounded in a notorious lock-up known as ‘The Shed’.