Palestinian para-cyclist Alaa al-Dali has long dreamed about representing his people on an international stage.
Following months of grueling training, al-Dali – an amputee with one leg – is putting everything he has into training for the Para-Cycling World Championships in August, after he and teammate Mohamed Asfour competed at the Para-Cycling World Cup in May, with al-Dali becoming the first Palestinian to finish in the top 20, booking a ticket for the pair to the prestigious World Championships in late August.
But keeping his mind on training is challenging most days, and near impossible on some, as his thoughts go towards the war in Gaza, where distressing
images of skeletal children are pouring out of the area, causing international outrage over starvation and mounting concern over restrictions on food and
aid ordered by Israel.
“My family is in Gaza. My children are in Gaza. There is famine now. There’s a genocide happening. We are going through a very difficult time now,” al-Dali told CNN Sports.
“Our people in Gaza, they are under bombardment, under threat of being killed all the time,” he said, explaining that he has lost over 30 friends and family to the war, with scores more injured.
Meanwhile, his wife and two children are trapped in Gaza as health officials report more deaths from malnutrition and among people desperately trying to get aid from convoys and distribution sites.
“My children are starving, and all I can do is look at them on a screen,” al-Dali said.
More than 60,000 people have died and over 146,000 have been injured in Gaza from Israeli strikes and military action after more than 21 months of fighting, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, which does not differentiate between civilians and militants.
The 28-year-old al-Dali’s path to the cycling spotlight has been marred by injury and tragedy.
In 2018, having qualified to be part of the Palestinian cycling team at the Asian Games later that year, he was shot during the first of the Great March of Return protests on March 30, and ultimately, had to have his leg amputated.
Al-Dali is just one of 35,000 protestors who sustained injuries during the 2018 Great March of Return, according to research from The Institute for Palestine Studies, an independent nonprofit research and publication center, which notes that this was “due to the deliberate targeting of protesters’ limbs by Israeli snipers.”
The Great March of Return demonstrations were protests to “demand the end of the Israeli blockade and the right of return for refugees,” according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
