Adidas is facing intensifying boycott calls after the German sportswear giant placed a former Israeli soldier at the centre of a global advertising campaign for its “Single Shoe Service” — a disability-accessibility initiative rolled out at a moment when Gaza records the highest child amputation rate anywhere in the world.
The campaign promotes a service that sells single shoes at half price to customers who need only one. Its face: former Israeli soldier Shalev Biton, who lost his left leg after being wounded near Gaza during Israel’s 2021 aggression on the strip. The service launched across Europe in January 2026, was formally announced in March, and has since rolled out in 23 countries — including Adidas outlets in occupied Palestinian territories, as Press TV reported.
Critics say the choice of representative is grotesque given the scale of limb loss Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has inflicted on Palestinians.
“War criminal promotion tactics”
Outrage spread quickly across social media. “ADIDAS launches ‘SINGLE-SHOE SERVICE’ for Israeli soldiers who lost a foot in Gaza. Boycotting is the least we can do,” wrote The Resonance (@Partisan_12), in a post that drew tens of thousands of responses.
Press TV reminded readers that Biton took part in the 2021 Israeli assault on Gaza that killed more than 200 Palestinians and destroyed numerous buildings, and that his social media profiles contain images of him carrying weapons and footage of Israeli troops singing and dancing in Gaza.
Rights activists, journalists and public figures — including Spanish actor Javier Bardem, who shared dozens of stories urging a boycott — have condemned the campaign.
“Gaza has the highest per capita rate of child amputees in the world. More than 5,000 traumatic limb amputations have been estimated since October 2023, as a result of Israeli attacks carried out by soldiers like the one Adidas chose to model for them,” wrote sports journalist Leyla Hamed.
US-based political commentator Guy Christensen called the campaign “actually disgusting when you know kids in Gaza who might not ever get to walk again,” before joining the boycott calls.
Another activist summed up the anger: “The German sportswear brand Adidas is using Zionist war criminals from the ‘Israel’ army, who lost a foot while invading Gaza, to promote their new single-foot sneakers. More than 4,000 Palestinian children have been amputated by ‘Israel’s’ bombs, but Adidas and other millionaire multinationals ignore them.”
Gaza’s amputation catastrophe
The figures behind the outrage are staggering:
Gaza’s Health Ministry, using the Sehhaty system developed with the ICRC, has documented more than 6,000 amputations as of August 2026.
The WHO’s sampled assessment of 2,277 amputees (September 2024–May 2026) found 76% were lower-limb cases and 18% involved children; its data showed roughly 5,300 amputees, with minors nearly a quarter of the total.
Humanity & Inclusion estimates around 4,000 people require roughly 6,000 prosthetic devices, and reported that 70–80% of patients admitted to Gaza’s 12 partially functioning hospitals had lost limbs or suffered spinal cord injuries.
UNICEF estimates roughly 4,000 children have lost limbs since the war began — the highest rate in the world — with up to 10 children a day undergoing leg amputations at the war’s peak. Save the Children documented more than 1,000 child amputations in just the first ten weeks after October 2023.
The tragedy has a face: the heartbreaking image of a 9-year-old Palestinian boy who lost both arms in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza City in March 2024 was named the 2025 World Press Photo of the Year.
A rehabilitation system in ruins
Compounding the toll is the near-total collapse of Gaza’s capacity to treat amputees. As of mid-2026, only eight prosthetists-orthotists remained working across the territory. Of roughly 1,500 people who received rehabilitation support through the ICRC, only around 300 were fitted with actual prosthetic devices — fewer than 40 of them were children. Healthcare workers have resorted to homemade prosthetics as temporary aids, while shortages of medical supplies and the continuing blockade complicate treatment. The UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry has warned the true toll is likely undercounted.
Not Adidas’ first controversy
The Biton campaign follows a 2024 backlash, when Adidas dropped Palestinian-American model Bella Hadid from a campaign referencing the 1972 Munich Olympics after criticism from “Israel” — later apologising to Hadid without reversing the decision. It also adds to a darker legacy: the company’s founders, the Dassler brothers, were members of the Nazi Party, a history the brand has long downplayed while profiting today from ties to Israeli crimes.
WATCH | Adidas’ dark legacy from Nazi roots to modern-day Israeli crimes
As the boycott grows, campaigners say the message is simple: a brand that profits from accessibility at home cannot celebrate the soldiers of a war that has left Gaza’s children with the world’s highest amputation rate — and then ignore them.
Reference: PressTv | Al-Mayadeen