In March 2018, Gaza cycling champion Alaa al-Dali was six months away from realising his goal of representing Palestine at the Asian Games in Indonesia.
A few days later, al-Dali was shot in the leg by an Israeli sniper as he took part in the Great March of Return, a massive wave of protests on the Israel-Gaza border organised by Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip against the expropriation of their land.
The bullet shattered 22 centimeters of bone in Al-Dali's right leg and crushed his lifelong dream of cycling in the Olympics.
Even as an able-bodied athlete, Al Dalí found it virtually impossible to participate in international competitions. Israeli authorities had blocked his requests to leave the besieged Gaza Strip. To protest the ban, Al Dalí, then 21, showed up to the march wearing a helmet and full cycling gear.
He left without the lower half of his right leg.
Al Dali's fate was disturbingly common: 81 percent of Israeli gunfire at the 2018 march targeted protesters' legs, according to a United Nations report. As a result, 122 Palestinians had to have their legs amputated.
Gaza's sunbirds take flight
Israeli violence and the resulting amputation failed to deter Al Dali from cycling. Instead, he formed the Gaza Sunbirds, a para-cycling team comprised of athletes who lost their limbs in the 2018 protests and other Israeli attacks. His team of 20 cyclists is a testament to the resilience of athletes who have been painfully driven from their sport by Israeli violence.
In the midst of Israel's ongoing war in Gaza, paracyclists have united for a different cause.
The Gaza Sunbirds have used their international recognition to collect donations for those affected by the war and their bicycles to deliver aid through the rubble-strewn streets of their homeland.
So far, the group's international fundraising campaign has raised more than $300,000. They have used the money to distribute 72 tons of food, offer shelter to 225 people, provide more than 7,000 hot meals and give $25,000 in stipends to people with disabilities in Gaza. The Sunbirds have also partnered with Palestinian NGO Sharek Youth Forum to build a camp for displaced people, a complex of 25 tents with food supplied by World Central Kitchen.
“During the war, there were no cars available, but our bicycles allowed us to travel even on the destroyed streets,” Al-Dali told Al Jazeera, highlighting the scale of damage to infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.
“Cycling gets us where we need to go, unlike the limitations we face as amputees.”
Part 1 of this week's relief mission: Our team is cooking hot meals and distributing them to as many people as possible!
Our team in Gaza doesn't give up! We build each other up and are excited for our evacuated team members to compete internationally💪🏽❤️ 🇵🇸 image.twitter.com/c5TZkTErsR
— gazasunbirds (@gazasunbirds) April 27, 2024
Cycling as a form of endurance
Despite the months of war, Al Dalí refused to give up on his dreams.
The 26-year-old continued training for a long-awaited shot at redemption at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.
“It was my dream to participate in the Olympics even before my amputation,” Al-Dali said.
“This is our first step towards success as Palestinian athletes. It is our right to participate in international competitions.”
Qualifying for the Paralympics is difficult, but almost impossible for athletes from Gaza. It is necessary to accumulate points by placing high in competitions held around the world.
However, the Israeli blockade prevents athletes living in Gaza from leaving the enclave without special permission, which is usually denied. And that was the case for the Sunbirds before the war began in October.
“We have been trying to send our athletes to races for the past two years but were unable to due to visa issues, the siege and our inability to travel,” Karim Ali, team manager of the National Cycling Federation of Palestine (NCFP) and co-founder of Gaza Sunbirds, told Al Jazeera.
In April, Al Dali was evacuated to Egypt, offering him a glimmer of hope of competing in the year's remaining Paralympic cycling competitions and qualifying for Paris. His wife and three young children were unable to leave Gaza.
While Al-Dali was competing in qualifying competitions in Belgium, Italy and Kazakhstan, bad news continued to come from his home country.
![Palestinian paracyclist Alaa al-Daali during a race in Italy [Courtesy of Egab]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/1555d311-9b41-4c94-8afe-9f2443ae43c3-1725176264.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C578)
Originally from Rafah, his family has been displaced multiple times and faces shortages of food and clean water. Two of his children recently fell ill due to toxins released by munitions, according to Gaza doctors.
“Rockets being launched into Gaza are causing devastation and spreading viruses through the air. The destruction is immense,” said Al Dali. “I cannot forget the war and the horrors our families are facing.”
The war, which has lasted almost 11 months, has also affected the other Sunbirds, who have abandoned competitions to focus on seeking asylum outside Gaza.
“My house in Gaza was destroyed and I fled seven times. My business was destroyed and I lived in a tent for months,” said Mohammed Abu Asfour, a 24-year-old Paralympic cyclist from Sunbirds who also lost a leg during the Great March of Return.
“After I left, I feared for my family in Gaza, especially because of the attack on Rafah and the closure of the border,” Abu Asfour said. “What I have experienced in the past few months has taken its toll on me.”
The pain of the Paris Paralympic Games
As the Paralympics approached, al-Dali was the only Sunbird vying for a spot at the games.
Even then, Al Dali said she never had a direct path to qualifying for the Olympics. Because of Israel’s blockade, she missed too many international competitions. Her only hope was to apply for what’s called a bipartisan berth, which grants an exemption to athletes for reasons of inclusion and diversity even if they don’t meet qualifying standards.
“Other countries have been participating and scoring points for two years,” al-Dali said. “So even if we had finished first, [in the qualifying races]“We wouldn't get the necessary points.”
Recently, disappointment struck again when he learned that the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) rejected his application for a bipartisan position.
“I was hoping to represent Palestine and raise its flag,” said al-Dali, who was training in Malaysia when he received the devastating news. “They should have considered the war conditions we are in and accepted my request.”
An IPC official told Al Jazeera that they received “a record number of applications for bipartite places” for the Paris games.
“It was decided not to grant a place to Alaa al-Dali as there were other athletes in the same class who applied for places and who had more competitive qualifying times,” the official said.
For the Gaza cycling champion, receiving the news was an “extremely difficult moment.”
“It was an indescribable feeling of sadness, pain and frustration,” al-Dali said.
There is a silver lining, though. In June, Al Dali finished with high enough scores at the Asian Para Cycling Road Championships in Kazakhstan to qualify for the 2024 UCI Para Cycling Road and Para Cycling World Championships in Zurich, the second major Para cycling event of the year.
“For the past month, we have been working on a professional training program with new instruments to take our training to the next level. I finally feel significant improvements,” Al-Dali said with renewed hope.
“The bike is a part of me. It’s all I have.”
This article was published in collaboration with Egab.
