Palestine team members checked anxiously for news from home even while they were competing at the Para Cycling Road World Championships at the weekend. The two riders were part of the Gaza Sunbirds, a para cycling team established for Gaza residents who lost their limbs in conflicts with Israel.
Mohammed Asfour nearly pulled out of Friday’s time trial in Ronse, Belgium, after being told his brother had just been killed. Frantic calls established the news wasn’t true.
Team co-founder Alaa al-Dali also fears the worst every day having already lost family members in the almost 23-month war. Displaced from Rafah, al-Dali’s family is sheltering in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.
Al-Dali and Asfour are based in Belgium after evacuating from Gaza in April last year. They keep racing to inspire adults and children who have lost their limbs back home. Both riders representing the Palestine team completed their classification's 61.6-kilometer road race on Sunday.
“Saying goodbye to my family in Gaza was not all for nothing,” al-Dali told The Associated Press.
The current war in Gaza was ignited on Oct. 7, 2023 when Hamas-led fighters attacked southern Israel. Israel launched a full-scale war in response.
Turning disability to opportunity
Both Al-Dali and Asfour lost their legs in similar fashion.
Al-Dali was a former cyclist who won many honors in Gaza. He was preparing for the Asian Games in 2018 and was wearing his cycling gear when he attended one of the weekly Great March of Return protests at the border fence with Israel. He was shot in his right leg. The leg was amputated after Israeli authorities denied his request to travel to the West Bank for treatment, al-Dali said.
Asfour was shot at another border protest in January 2019, which led to his right leg being amputated, Carina Low, communications manager with the Gaza Sunbirds, confirmed earlier to AP.
Shootings in the legs were common during those border protests, according to a 2019 UN report that found 122 individuals underwent amputations, the majority involving lower limbs. The Israeli army said at the time of the protests it considered shots to the legs as a form of restraint.
Many more Palestinians have lost their limbs since. Earlier this year, the UN’s humanitarian aid organization OCHA said Gaza had the “largest cohort of child amputees in modern history.”
Cycling in Gaza It was for this reason – before the current war, when there were still roads suitable for cycling – that al-Dali co-founded the Gaza Sunbirds para cycling team in 2021.
“It was as if I was born with one leg, and my birth date is the day of my injury,” al-Dali said. “This inspired me to help people like me.”
Now 28 years old, al-Dali struggled with depression and often dreamed of his leg growing back after his amputation. Cycling was his passion and it took some time – and many falls – before he could adjust to racing a bicycle again with one leg. First, he had to learn how to walk on a prosthetic leg.
“They amputated my leg, but didn’t amputate my passion or dream,” said al-Dali, who still hopes to follow Fadi Aldeeb, Palestine's only representative at the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris.
Taking off with the Sunbirds
Together with co-founder Karim Ali, a Palestinian-Cypriot based in London, al-Dali started the Sunbirds with a small team of 25 people. He said the initiative empowered new teammates to overcome amputations as they can move around freely on their bikes instead of depending on others.
They initially struggled to obtain funding and proper equipment, Ali told the AP. The only bicycles available in Gaza were secondhand, and they were regular bikes that needed to be altered for cyclists without limbs.
Renewed outbreaks of conflict with Israel were another challenge. When the latest war broke out after Oct. 7, 2023, the Sunbirds halted cycling altogether and shifted their focus to aid deliveries as transportation means became scarce. Ali said they delivered $400,000 worth of aid since the war began.
But the team’s bikes have been destroyed, and the destruction of roads means the Sunbirds can’t cycle again in Gaza even if the war suddenly ended.
Future dreams Despite the bleak outlook, the Sunbirds aim to restart activities in Gaza as soon as possible, with plans also for tandem bikes for visually impaired riders.
“We’re going to build stationary bikes in Gaza. We’re not going to wait for the roads to be rebuilt or for the bikes to be brought in. We’ll get spare parts and create stationary bikes,” Ali said. “Our dream in the future is to start a school in Gaza where people can learn about cycling and reconnecting with their bodies.”
