Published on 6/19/2026
A video clip circulating on social media platforms showed a Palestinian child from the Gaza Strip, missing both legs, playing football.
The child, Muhammad Saeed Ahmed Shaaban (9 years old), plays with the ball gracefully, like an experienced player, with amazing speed, even though he has no feet.
The child had both feet and one hand amputated since he was an infant at the age of 40 days, but he was able to demonstrate great skill in controlling and moving with the ball.
However, this inspiring scene was not in a prepared playground, but was taken among the narrow alleys of the displaced persons’ tents, in a shelter camp set up in what remained of the Jabalia camp in the northern Gaza Strip, amid an atmosphere covered by the harshness of asylum and daily misery.
Playing football has become the last remaining entertainment and refuge for the child Muhammad Saeed to escape from his difficult reality, especially after the demolition of his family home in the town of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, and the loss of his electric wheelchair, which represented the feet with which he moved under the rubble along with his favorite toys.
The child’s motor and psychological suffering doubles with the destruction of his school and his deprivation of systematic education. His family indicates that he has not been able to go to school regularly for about 3 years due to war conditions and the destruction of the educational infrastructure.
The absence of an electric chair prevents the child from going to some educational points that were recently opened to compensate Gaza students for the education they lost during the war.
Muhammad Saeed is the fourth son in a poor family, whose breadwinner, Ahmed, was injured by a bullet during the war, which settled near the heart, preventing him from working.
Due to the lack of a source of income, the child’s family lives on the food aid they receive from the shelter center.
