RAMAT GAN, Israel — When Ben Binyamin was left for dead, his right leg blown off during the Hamas attack on the Tribe of Nova music festival, the Israeli professional soccer player thought he would never play the game he loved again.
“When I woke up,” the 29-year-old said, “I felt like I was going to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair.”
Then Binyamin learned of a chance to be “normal” again: Israel’s national amputee soccer team.
The group, which includes two Israeli soldiers who lost limbs fighting in the war with Hamas, offered all three a chance to heal from the life-changing wounds they suffered in the October 7 attacks and Israel’s war on Gaza that follow. He heads to France in June for the European Amputee Football Championship. About 16 teams, mostly from Europe, will compete.
“It’s the best thing in my life,” said 1st Sgt. Omer Glikstal of the team practices twice a week at a stadium in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan. The 20-year-old soldier from Haifa played football regularly until his life was turned upside down when a grenade shattered his left leg during combat in Gaza in November.
“It’s a very different game than what I used to play, but it’s the same at the end of the day,” he said.
Dozens of Israelis lost limbs in the Hamas attacks that killed around 1,200 people in southern Israel and the war that followed. The Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, home to a major rehabilitation center, says it alone has treated about 60 amputees.
Israel’s Defense Ministry says 1,573 soldiers have been wounded since Israel launched its ground offensive in late October, which has seen troops engage in close combat with Hamas militants. The military did not have specific statistics on amputees, but said about 320 soldiers were seriously injured.
Israeli athletes and others who have lost limbs have benefited from a world-class medical system that has decades of experience treating young people wounded in war and conflict.
In Gaza, unknown numbers of Palestinians have also lost limbs in a war that has killed nearly 34,000 people, according to Gaza health officials. Gaza’s health system has been overwhelmed by the war, and doctors and patients say they often have to choose between amputation or death. Before the war, Gaza also had a fledgling team of amputee footballers injured in previous clashes with Israel.
Shaked Bitton, an Israeli army division commander, lost his right leg when he was shot by a Hamas sniper with a .50-caliber round – the kind that can be fired through concrete – near the Jabaliya refugee camp in late October . “I heard two shots. I fell down. I looked back,” said the 21-year-old soldier, “and I saw my leg.”
Bitton thought his life was over – he had never met an amputee before – until he was visited in hospital by others who had lost limbs and successfully moved on with their lives.
Among them was Zach Shichrur, founder of Israel’s national amputee soccer team. Severely injured when a bus ran over his leg at the age of 8, he knew what these men were going through and offered them hope.
“There is nothing more important than going out and competing at an international level with the Israeli flag on your chest. Most of us, if not all, could not even imagine such a thing,” said Shichrur, 36, a lawyer and leader of the group.
Since its inception five years ago, the Israeli team has enjoyed increasing success, finishing third in the Nations League in Belgium in October. This qualifies him to compete in the European championships in June.
Amputee football teams have six players who do not have lower limbs. they play on crutches and without prosthetics. Every team has a goalkeeper who is missing an upper limb. The pitch is smaller than standard.
In team practices, Israeli players are not deterred by the absence of an arm or a leg — whether from an accident, war injury or birth defect.
“We all have something in common. We have been through many difficult and difficult times. It brings us together,” said Aviran Ohana, a cybersecurity major whose right leg is shorter than his left due to a birth defect, and who has played with the team for two years.
On a recent April afternoon, the team began their warm-up by sprinting around the field, the men sprinting forward on one foot, steadied by their crutches.
A game with able teenagers followed. Benjamin, dripping with sweat, kicked the ball with his left foot as the coach shouted from the sidelines: “Go! Forward!” Every goal was celebrated.
Sir Ludwig Guttmann, a Jewish neurologist who fled Nazi Germany in 1939 and settled in Britain, is credited with pioneering competitive sports as a form of rehabilitation. Guttmann, who organized the first wheelchair competition on the opening day of the London Olympics in 1948, is considered the father of the Paralympic Games and his legacy has improved the lives of thousands of disabled athletes.
In Israel today, the amputee soccer team offers players the excitement of competition — and the healing powers of sports, said Michal Nechama, the team’s physical therapist.
“They need it for their souls,” he said. “It gives them joy, pride. That extra thing you can’t give to a hospital.”