Adidas faces boycott calls for featuring Israeli soldier in amputee campaign

Adidas released an advertisement this week that has ignited immediate calls for a boycott. The campaign features Shalev Biton, a former Israeli soldier who lost his leg during the 2021 conflict in Gaza, trying on a single shoe at an Adidas store in Israel and then running outdoors wearing it. The company was promoting its in-store service for amputees. Within days, the ad drew sharp criticism from human rights campaigners, pro-Palestine activists, and public figures including Spanish actor Javier Bardem, US-Palestinian author Susan Abulhawa, and Pakistani author Fatima Bhutto, all calling for consumers to reject the brand.

The timing and subject matter of the campaign have collided with a humanitarian catastrophe. Between 5,000 and 6,000 Palestinians in Gaza have undergone amputations since the conflict began in October 2023, according to World Health Organization estimates as of early October 2025, when Israel and Hamas signed a ceasefire agreement. That figure sits within a larger toll: 42,000 Palestinians have sustained life-altering injuries over the two-year war. Children account for roughly a quarter of all amputations in Gaza—a rate that represents the highest concentration of child amputees per capita anywhere in the world, according to the International Rescue Committee.

Stephanie Westbrook, a sports boycott campaigns coordinator for the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel and a founding member of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, framed the advertisement as more than a misstep. "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," she told Al Jazeera. She argued that such campaigns risk normalizing what she described as Israeli actions, allowing them to continue without consequence. Westbrook pointed to the specific framing of Biton's identity as centered on his military service, and to the broader context: an army belonging to a state she characterized as currently committing genocide, maintaining an illegal military occupation, and imposing decades-long apartheid rule.

The humanitarian situation for Gaza's amputees has deteriorated since the ceasefire. Israel's blockade has prevented medicines and prosthetics from entering the enclave, compounding the damage from destroyed medical facilities. Westbrook described this as a "medieval siege" creating a man-made shortage of the very devices amputees need for rehabilitation and mobility. The health sector, she said, has been decimated, leaving severe gaps in care and rehabilitation services.

Meanwhile, hundreds of Palestinian athletes have lost their limbs during the war. More than a thousand Palestinian athletes were killed overall. Some of the amputees have formed football teams, using sport as a means of survival and recovery—attempting to reclaim fragments of their former lives despite months of loss, injuries, and widespread destruction. The contrast between Biton's advertisement, showing him returning to running and outdoor activity, and the reality facing Gaza's amputees—many unable to access prosthetics or rehabilitation—has sharpened the criticism. Adidas did not respond to requests for comment on the campaign or the boycott calls.