ARMS raised high. Banners denouncing the war in Gaza. Crowds united in song and wrapped in keffiyehs, the black-and-white checkered scarves that have become a badge of Palestinian identity.

It could have been any other pro-Palestinian rally erupting over Israel-Hamas war if it weren’t for the fact that these thousands of protesters were actually football fans at a league match in Santiago, the capital of Chile.

Although the players darting across the field had names like Jose and Antonio and grew up in a Spanish-speaking South American nation, their fervour for the Palestinian cause and red, white, black and green-coloured jerseys underscored how Chile’s storied football club serves as an entry point for the world’s largest Palestinian community outside the Middle East to connect with an ancestral home thousands of miles away.