Gaza Sunbirds Race Towards Freedom in Cairo

Gaza has the highest number of child amputees per capita in the world. Health organizations in Gaza have recorded over 6,000 limb amputations since the ongoing Israeli genocide started in October 2023. Some of these permanently disabled amputees are among the thousands of medical evacuees from Gaza recovering in Egyptian hospitals—and members of Palestine’s national para-cycling team: the Gaza Sunbirds.

On the outskirts of Cairo, we meet head coach Hassan Harb waiting for the team in his living room. He wears a black quarter zip, ‘Gaza Sunbirds’ laminated over his stomach. “Captain Abu Ali!” three men greet him. They walk through the door with the help of crutches or a prosthetic. Each has lost a leg to Israeli attacks.

Captain Abu Ali has been training the Gaza Sunbirds since they started in Gaza back in 2020 with seven players. His first player was Alaa Al-Dali, who was also the first person in Gaza to ride a bike with one leg after losing the other to a gunshot wound during the ‘Great March of Return’ protests in 2018. Alaa was one of 36,000 people injured by Israeli forces during the protests.

Captain Abu Ali was already Alaa’s coach before the injury. And after training him for two years as an amputee, they opened up practice to other injured young men. That was the beginning of para-cycling in Gaza. The team had grown to 25 players by the time the genocide started.“After 7 months of war, we got the opportunity to compete in our first international competition, the World Cup in Belgium,” Captain Abu Ali said. “We made the difficult decision that we must leave Gaza to represent Palestine.” Many of their family members still remain back home, like Alaa’s wife, children, parents and siblings, as he trains in Belgium with around 5 players. Captain Abu Ali was originally with them, but returned to Egypt for medical treatment. Now, the Gaza Sunbirds are scattered across the world, with 16 player still in Gaza. But they haven’t even been able to train. “The streets are destroyed,” Captain Abu Ali said. “Even our bicycles were targeted and bombed.”

Three to four days a week, the Cairo team runs through the same routine: grab their bikes, secure their helmet, and click their shoes, or shoe, into place. Then the team takes off down the street, pedaling behind each other in a single file line. Captain Abu Ali rides alongside them on his motorcycle, sandwiched between them and the traffic.

Mahdi Mortaja usually leads the pack. He was the first member of the team in Cairo. The Gaza Sunbirds had already visited him when he was still in the hospital in Gaza. “Wherever you end up, contact us,” they told him before he was evacuated. “We want to make a team with you.” He remembered their words when he arrived for treatment in Egypt, and after fitting his prosthetic leg, he called one of the guys. “We were already waiting for you,” they said. Before long, he started training with Captain Abu Ali.

The coach often finds his players recovering from amputations in Egyptian hospitals. The team he trains is part of a community of over 100,000 displaced Palestinians in Egypt.“In Egypt, we’ve been able to reach some of the hundreds of amputees who have come out of Gaza,” the captain said. “Through Gaza Sunbirds, we’re helping them become active again in their communities, physically and mentally.”

Before his injury, Mahdi was a football player. “I couldn’t imagine returning to the sport in a different condition,” he said. “Cycling was a faster way to compete again and represent Palestine.”

Mahdi has been wearing a jersey with Palestine written in bold letters around the world, thousands of miles away from Gaza. Around a year after joining, in February 2026, Mahdi came in 4th place in the Asian Para-Cycling Road World Championships in Saudi Arabia—his first competition abroad. He continued on to the World Cup in Thailand the following month. There he met Alaa and the rest of the Gaza Sunbirds team coming from Belgium.

“It was a tough road and I was up against players with decades of training, but thank God, I got 15th place,” Mahdi smiled, “in the world.”

Ramzi Rasheed peddles close behind Mahdi, as he did in Saudi. When Ramzi joined the team six months before his first competition, he was stopping after three-minute intervals on a stationary bike. “I was afraid when I started,” he said. “I didn’t understand how you could possibly ride a bike with one leg.” Captain Abu Ali started slowly with him, going back to the basics of how to balance on the bicycle. Then he pushed Ramzi to saddle a real bike on the road. Ramzi covered greater and greater distances, until he made the ultimate trip to Saudi. He came in last in the competition, but it didn’t matter.

“I managed to do what I couldn’t do when I was healthy,” Ramzi said.Ramzi recites the date he was injured with the same reflex some might have for their own birthday: March 16th, 2024. It is the date he lost his leg and multiple family members in Gaza.

“After I got out of treatment, I was depressed. I didn’t leave the house, I didn’t have friends, until Gaza Sunbirds,” he said. “Cycling gave me energy. It gave me a family.”

Abdullah Abudba isn’t far behind Ramzi on the road. He is the newest member, with just six months of training under his belt. He wears the same black quarter zip as Captain Abu Ali, while Ramzi and Mahdi wear the newly designed ‘Team Palestine’ jerseys they competed in.

“My main goal is to participate in international races,” Abdullah said. “Before my injury, I was an athletic person. I used to do parkour, I used to run. I never cycled, but it healed me.”

Abdullah is still recovering from the amputation of his left leg and multiple fractures in his right. “I was completely immobile for eight months,” he said. “When I get tired during practice, this is what I remember to keep going.”

When asked what he would say to other amputees thinking of joining the team, he says he would show them pictures of where he was a year ago.

“The Paralympics do not exclude anyone. Every injured person has a sport,” Abdullah added. “No one should ever say, ‘I can’t.’”

In the past two years, the Gaza Sunbirds have competed in Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, Kazakhstan, Saudi, and Thailand, with upcoming competitions in the US and Japan. Their goal: The 2028 Paralympics in Los Angeles.The Cairo team ends their practice back where they started, in front of the captain’s house. They help each other dismount the bikes, and pat each other on the back between gulps of water. The three men are tired, but never discouraged.

“What keeps us on the bike is one idea,” Mahdi says: “When the occupation did this to you, the goal was to disable you, to make you give up on your life. So you have to do the opposite. It’s that simple.”

“You get back up again.”

To donate to the organisation’s aid missions in Gaza or to support the team in competing internationally, you can visit www.gazasunbirds.org.

Produced by: @cairoscene | @mo4network
CairoScene Managing Editor: @farahdesoukyy
Interview Producer & Words: @lailashadid 
Videography: @felolexander
Photography: @fariszaitoon
Video Edit: @rosmedium
Art Director: @usfsherif
AC/Key Crew: @mahmoud.gehad1 & @bahaamohamed2