Adidas faces boycott calls over campaign featuring former Israeli soldier

Activists slam campaign showing soldier while over 5,000 Palestinians faced amputations due to Israeli attacks in Gaza.

Al JazeeraAl Jazeera Staff2026-09-06 18:56查看原文 ↗

A delivery worker walks past an Adidas store at a shopping compound in Beijing, China April 9, 2025. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang

Activists slam campaign showing soldier while more than 5,000 Palestinians faced amputations due to Israeli attacks in Gaza.

Sportswear giant Adidas has faced criticism and calls for a boycott for featuring a former Israeli army soldier in an advertising campaign for the company’s single-shoe service for amputees.

The Adidas advertisement promoting its in-store service, which shows former Israeli soldier Shalev Biton trying on a shoe at a store in Israel and then wearing it while running outdoors, was termed “an affront to Palestinians” by a boycott campaigns coordinator on Sunday.

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Biton lost his leg after being wounded during the 2021 Israel-Gaza conflict, during which the Israeli army attacked the besieged enclave repeatedly in an 11-day assault.

Human rights campaigners and pro-Palestine activists say the immediate outrage and online boycott campaign targeted at Adidas should not come as a surprise to the German athletic apparel and footwear company.

“This isn’t Adidas being tone-deaf or insensitive; it is an absolute affront to the Palestinians who have lost their loved ones, killed by Israel, and who have lost their limbs [to Israeli attacks],” Stephanie Westbrook, a sports boycott campaigns coordinator for the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) – a founding member of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement – told Al Jazeera.

Westbrook underlined the danger of such campaigns, which she believes would “normalise Israel’s crimes against Palestinians and allow it to continue to commit them with impunity”.

“Here we have an Adidas campaign featuring an Israeli soldier, whose whole identity is centred around his being a soldier, who lost his leg while participating in one of the repeated Israeli assaults on Gaza, serving in an army of a state that is currently committing genocide, has carried out an illegal military occupation of the Palestinian territory, and that has been imposing a decades-long apartheid rule over Palestinians,” she said.

The World Health Organization estimates that between 5,000 and 6,000 people in Gaza have undergone amputations as of early October 2025, when Israel and Hamas signed a “ceasefire” agreement. They are among the 42,000 Palestinians in Gaza who have sustained life-changing injuries during the two-year conflict.

Nearly a year since the ceasefire, conditions remain dire due to Israel’s blockage of humanitarian aid from entering the enclave.

While the advertisement shows the soldier returning to the streets to exercise and run, more than one thousand Palestinian athletes have been killed during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

Hundreds of aspiring footballers have lost their limbs and have formed amputee football teams, finding some respite in sport despite their pain.

These players hold on to football as a means of survival and are trying to reclaim fragments of their former lives despite months of loss, injuries, and widespread destruction.

Spanish actor Javier Bardem was among those calling for a boycott of the sportswear brand. Bardem, who is a vocal pro-Palestine activist, shared several images and videos highlighting the boycott campaign on his social media accounts.

US-Palestinian author Susan Abulhawa, Pakistani author Fatima Bhutto, and Palestinians on social media called for a boycott of Adidas products.

Rights campaigner Westbrook highlighted Israel’s blockade on Gaza, which prevents medicines and prosthetics from entering the Gaza Strip following Israeli destruction of the territory’s medical facilities.

Children account for a quarter of all amputations in Gaza over the past two years, making it the place in the world with the highest number of child amputees per capita, according to the International Rescue Committee.

Westbrook said Israel had “decimated the health sector”, causing a severe lack of care and rehabilitation services.

“Its medieval siege is preventing prosthetics from even entering Gaza, creating this man-made shortage,” she added.

Since the Israeli war on Gaza began in October 2023, reports the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), 42,000 Palestinians have suffered life-altering injuries, of which 11,000 are children.

活动人士抨击一项宣传活动，该活动展示了一名士兵，而与此同时，超过 5000 名巴勒斯坦人因以色列在加沙的袭击而面临截肢。

阿迪达斯因启用前以色列士兵的广告宣传活动而面临抵制呼声。

运动服装巨头阿迪达斯因在其为截肢者提供的单只鞋服务的广告宣传活动中启用一名以色列前陆军士兵而面临批评和抵制呼声。

阿迪达斯的一则广告宣传其店内服务，广告中以色列前士兵沙莱夫·比顿在以色列的一家商店试穿鞋子，然后穿着鞋子在户外跑步。周日，一位抵制运动协调员称该广告“是对巴勒斯坦人的侮辱”。

列表 1/4 “一切照旧”：因凡蒂诺将竞选连任国际足联主席

巴勒斯坦俱乐部足球联赛将于9月重启，这是加沙战争停赛后的四个重启计划中的第二个。

列表 3/4：截肢后的生活：加沙妇女通过足球重获新生

列表 4/4 梦想破碎：加沙截肢者在封锁和废墟中挣扎求生

比顿在 2021 年以色列-加沙冲突中受伤，失去了一条腿。在那场冲突中，以色列军队在 11 天的进攻中反复袭击了被围困的加沙地带。

人权活动家和亲巴勒斯坦活动人士表示，针对阿迪达斯的立即引发的愤怒和网络抵制运动，对于这家德国运动服装和鞋类公司来说并不意外。

“这不是阿迪达斯不识时务或麻木不仁；这是对那些失去亲人、被以色列杀害、以及因以色列袭击而失去肢体的巴勒斯坦人的绝对侮辱，”巴勒斯坦学术和文化抵制以色列运动（PACBI，抵制、撤资和制裁 (BDS) 运动的创始成员之一）的体育抵制运动协调员斯蒂芬妮·韦斯特布鲁克告诉半岛电视台。

韦斯特布鲁克强调了此类运动的危险性，她认为这将“使以色列对巴勒斯坦人的罪行正常化，并允许其继续逍遥法外地犯下这些罪行”。