Meet the para-cyclists riding for Gaza

Jonathan Rashad
Foreign Policy
Mon, 02 Sep 2024 06:00 UTC

© Jonathan Rashad for Foreign Policy

, three with prosthetic legs, wear bike helmets and t-shirts as they stand in a parking lot, gathered around a bicycle held up by the man second from the right. The sky above is a dim, dark blue; it seems to be either dawn or dusk.
From left: Gaza Sunbirds team members Mohamed Asfour and Waheed Rabah pose for a portrait with co-founders Karim Ali and Alaa al-Daly outside their training house in Cairo on April 26

I first met members of the Gaza Sunbirds in April, just days after they managed to escape the war in the Gaza Strip. For co-founder Alaa al-Daly, 26, it was his first time leaving the besieged territory. The Sunbirds, a Gaza-based para-cycling organization started by Daly and Karim Ali, trains and supports athletes with disabilities amid conflict.

After fleeing a devastating war, the Sunbirds did not rest. Instead, they set their sights on qualifying for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, which began on Aug. 28, in the hopes of raising awareness about the Palestinian cause. Although the team recently learned that its quest was unsuccessful, it still aims to inspire future Palestinian athletes.

"I left my family behind under bombs in a genocide just to compete. Now, I have to wait four years," Daly said, vowing to push forward and prepare for the next Paralympics, which will be held in Los Angeles in 2028.

The first step on that path is the International Cycling Union's Road and Paracycling Road World Championships in Zurich, where Daly will compete next month. This event is historic — marking the first time that the cycling and para-cycling championships will be held together.

© Jonathan Rashad photos for Foreign Policy

Mohamed Asfour (right), 24, tests out a prosthetic leg at a maintenance factory in Cairo on April 26.

"This presents a unique opportunity for para-cycling to receive the same level of media attention as regular cycling," Ali said.

The Sunbirds' story began with tragedy but has evolved into one of remarkable resilience. Until 2018, Daly worked in construction and was a member of the Palestinian national cycling team. That year, Israeli forces shot him in the leg during the Great March of Return, a series of protests along the Gaza-Israel border in which thousands of Palestinians demanded the right to return to the ancestral lands from which they were displaced in 1948, when the state of Israel was founded.

Throughout the demonstrations, which lasted from March 2018 to December 2019, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) deployed live ammunition, tear gas, and rubber bullets against protesters, leading to numerous casualties. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, almost 8,000 Palestinians were shot with live ammunition during this period; the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees reports that at least 195 individuals were killed.

"I went peacefully with my bicycle and national team jersey. I'm sure they shot me in the leg on purpose because they saw I was an athlete on my bike," Daly said. "It was extremely tough for me, losing a leg, but they only made me more persistent."

Shortages of essential medical supplies in Gaza mean that care is often compromised. This has created a so-called amputee crisis. During the Great March of Return, the U.N. recorded 156 amputations due to IDF fire; 60 percent of these cases required secondary amputations due to infections.

© Mohamed Soleiman/Egab

Daly (left) distributes food to people displaced during the war, seen at an encampment in Rafah, Gaza, in February.

Daly's injury led doctors to amputate his right leg. Although he struggled to find new employment due to his disability, he was determined to stay connected to cycling. With support from his family and friends, Daly relearned how to ride a normal bicycle. Together with Ali, a Palestinian Cypriot who lives in London and met Daly virtually, Daly created the Gaza Sunbirds.

For five years, the two managed the organization remotely, with Ali handling operations from London and Daly coordinating from Gaza. Their first in-person meeting took place in April, following Daly's departure from Gaza. The Sunbirds are registered as a community interest company in the United Kingdom. Today, the team includes around 50 male athletes with disabilities who cycle. Members range from 10 to 50 years old.

Even before the start of Israel's war in Gaza last year, the Sunbirds faced immense challenges training in the enclave. Since 2007, Israel has held Gaza under a blockade — controlling the densely populated territory's airspace, land borders, and coastal waters. The restrictions on movement have decimated Gaza's economy, creating dire humanitarian conditions.

Residents also face psychological trauma due to conflict. A 2020 study found that more than half of Gaza's children were suffering from PTSD, underscoring the profound psychological toll of the ongoing conflict. The medical journal Lancet warns that the war has only deepened the mental health crisis affecting its roughly 2.1 million residents.

"The occupation's challenges make life impossible, affecting mental health," Ali said.

© Jonathan Rashad for Foreign Policy

Cyclists from the Gaza Sunbirds talk to local children outside their training house in Cairo on April 26.

The Sunbirds became an outlet for many amputees, but the group has always had limited access to proper cycling equipment and training facilities. Ali noted that simply riding bikes was a logistical nightmare under siege, with constant monitoring by drones and planes, travel restrictions, and regulations affecting the materials that can enter Gaza. Yet the team continued to train, hoping to represent Palestinians on the international stage.

Daly, who was born in 1997, grew up in Gaza and has witnessed eight major Palestinian-Israeli conflicts — starting with the Second Intifada and ending with the ongoing war. The new round of hostilities erupted on Oct. 7, 2023, following a Hamas-led assault that killed 1,200 Israelis and saw 251 people taken hostage. At least 40,600 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed in Gaza in the Israeli military onslaught that has followed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

The current war plunged the Gaza Sunbirds into chaos, displacing the team and obliterating its training facilities. Its practice space, once a haven, was reduced to debris by Israeli strikes. Hungry and thirsty, team members rescued friends from rubble and dodged airstrikes, witnessing buildings collapse around them.

"Living in Gaza, you grow numb anticipating death at any moment," Daly said. "I'll never forget watching a woman desperately trying to wake her dead children, bombed while she fetched food. ... This is the reality of our lives right now."

© Mohamed Soleiman/Egab

Daly (right) and another Sunbird member distribute food and aid at an encampment in Rafah in February.

The Sunbirds were undeterred, turning tragedy into action. Thanks to donations, the team said it has provided aid and food packages to more than 90,000 Palestinians in Gaza during the war, despite themselves enduring dire circumstances. Daly distributed food while drones and planes struck throughout the strip, cycling with one leg through rubble, damaged streets, and dust.

"We used to go out — with our disabilities — delivering food aid packages all over Gaza amid bombings just meters away. Sometimes we used bikes. Sometimes horse-drawn carriages. The goal was to feed the people of Gaza," Daly recalled.

More than 80 percent of Gaza's roughly 2.1 million residents are internally displaced. Northern Gaza is facing a full-blown famine, according to the U.N. Civilians are struggling to find food, and at least 27 children had died from starvation as of April 2, nongovernmental organization Save the Children reported.

"Due to the lack of food, some [Sunbirds] team members in Gaza were so hungry they had to eat livestock feed just to survive," Daly said.

Last year, South Africa brought a case at the International Court of Justice, alleging that Israel was committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. In January, the court concluded it had jurisdiction over the matter and acknowledged the risk of "irreparable harm to the rights of the Palestinian people" if Israel did not change course.

© Flavia Cappellini

Daly (left), Asfour (right), another team member, and their trainer Hasan Abuharb (center right) stand at the Rafah border crossing in Gaza in June 2023.

In April, three Sunbirds managed to escape to Egypt: Daly; Mohamed Asfour, 24; and Waheed Rabah, 48. All lost their legs in the 2018 Great March of Return. Like thousands of Gazans, the trio navigated grueling border logistics to leave the enclave. Traveling with their coach and two officials from the Palestinian national cycling federation, their departure was delayed as they awaited approval at the Rafah border crossing, which was then controlled by Palestinian authorities. (Israel took control of the crossing two weeks later.)

Now safe, Daly fears tragic news about his family back home whenever he leaves his phone unattended. "We're still living through the war even though we're outside of Gaza. Our wives and children are still there, subjected to genocide. That is also affecting my focus in the training," he said.

© Jonathan Rashad for Foreign Policy

From left: Daly, Asfour, and Ali regroup at a house after training in Cairo on April 26.

After arriving in Egypt, Dali, Asfour, and Rabah had less than two weeks to train for one of the qualifiers for the Paris Paralympics, which was held in Ostend, Belgium, in May. The team faced significant visa challenges in getting to Europe. None of them qualified for the Games, likely due in part to insufficient training during the war. With their qualification hopes dashed, Asfour and Rabah applied for asylum in Belgium, jeopardizing their futures with the Palestinian national team.

© Jonathan Rashad photo for Foreign Policy

From left: Asfour, Daly, and Abuharb pray at a house in Cairo on April 26.

Daly then eyed a solo invitation to the Paralympics — a possibility for athletes from countries facing significant crises. He applied to an International Paralympic Committee (IPC) body known as the Bipartite Commission. "Countries can apply for individual para-cyclists to get this invitation, for extenuating circumstances that might have prevented them from regularly qualifying for the Games," Ali said.

Daly sent his application to the Bipartite Commission in July. Both Daly and Ali expected the application to prioritize athletes from conflict zones, but in the end, the IPC declined to invite Daly to Paris. "It was heartbreaking for me not to make it the Paralympics," Daly said.

Fadi Deeb, a shot-putter, will be the sole Palestinian Paralympian in Paris. The Sunbirds say they take pride in Deeb raising the Palestinian flag on the global stage, acknowledging the immense burden that he carries as their people's lone representative.

"I am very happy that there will be another athlete from Palestine taking part in these games," Daly said. "It is so important for people in Gaza to see that we are able to achieve things despite our disabilities."

As the war continues, the enclave's amputee crisis has reached unprecedented levels. The U.N. children's agency, UNICEF, reported that more than 1,000 Palestinian children underwent amputations, many without anesthesia, in the first two months of the war alone.

© Lidia Ravviso

Daly competes in a race held in Italy in May.

Despite Daly's unsuccessful bid for this year's Games, he remains determined to compete in the Los Angeles Summer Paralympics in 2028. However, Gaza's unpredictable future leaves both his personal and professional plans uncertain. "I have no idea what the next four years will look like for Gaza, but if things stabilize, then I can look forward much more to competing," he said. "With this one leg, I represent Palestine everywhere."

For Ali, the fight is not just about making it to international competitions — it is also about surviving.

"The Paralympics was a dream, our North Star, but it wasn't the reason why we did what we did," he said. "We just need this war to end. We need freedom. We need peace."