Gaza Women Amputees Find Recovery Through Football
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- Palestine Association Women's Amputee Football Team operates in Deir el-Balah with 11 players — nine with lower-limb amputations and two with upper-limb amputations who play as goalkeepers — founded by Fouad Abu Ghalyon to support recovery after life-changing injuries.
- WHO and Palestinian health authorities estimate more than 5,000 people in Gaza have undergone limb amputations since Israel's war began on October 7, 2023, a scale the article describes as one of the highest amputation rates in modern history.
- 23-year-old Farah Abu Qinas lost her left leg after a nearby location was bombed on June 28, 2024; she joined the team after meeting Abu Ghalyon during physical therapy and now plays alongside teammates Rozan Khaira and Aisha al-Abadla.
- Rozan Khaira lost her leg on November 19, 2023, when an air strike destroyed a house opposite her home, telling Al Jazeera: "The [Israeli] occupation amputated our bodies, but it could not amputate our dreams or our will to live."
- Aisha al-Abadla was born with an incomplete arm that doctors believe may stem from her mother's exposure to white phosphorus during Israel's 2008 war on Gaza; she aspires to become goalkeeper for a Palestinian women's amputee national team.
- Dr Khader Abu Shmala, sport psychologist and Gaza Hope team coach, says amputee football rebuilds confidence and reconnects isolated survivors with society beyond physical rehabilitation.
- 1,009 members of the Palestinian athletic community have been killed in the war, the article reports, with near-complete eradication of Gaza's sporting infrastructure.
Why it matters: With over 5,000 amputees documented by the WHO and Palestinian health authorities since October 2023, Gaza's amputee football team addresses a rehabilitation crisis that formal infrastructure cannot meet — and the team continues to operate despite 1,009 Palestinian athletes killed and sporting facilities largely destroyed.
