Adidas faces boycott calls over promotion featuring ex-IDF soldier who lost leg in 2021

Sportswear giant Adidas is facing calls for a boycott of all its products over its inclusion of a former Israeli soldier to promote a service that enables amputee athletes to buy just one running shoe.

Pro-Palestinian activists panned the company for working with Shalev Biton, citing the high number of amputees in the Gaza Strip, and in particular children, as a result of the recent war there.

In a response Sunday to the Times of Israel, Adidas stressed that its Single Shoe service is a worldwide campaign and rejected suggestions that it was specifically for Israeli soldiers.

The furor began last week after Biton published a homemade video highlighting his participation in Adidas’s promotion of its Single Shoe service.

The global sports company launched the Single Shoe service in Europe in January, and expanded the initiative to markets in the Middle East a couple of months later.

Biton, along with 10 other disabled athletes, was featured in a series of posters displayed in local Adidas outlets across Israel. The posters were only used in Israel and not as part of a global campaign.

Biton was formerly a soldier serving in the IDF’s Nahal infantry brigade. On May 12, 2021, amid a conflict with Hamas in Gaza dubbed Operation Guardian of the Walls, he was injured when an anti-tank missile fired from inside Gaza hit the military vehicle he was in on the Israeli side of the border. Biton was seriously injured, and fellow soldier Staff Sgt. Omer Tabib was killed.

As a result of his injuries, Biton’s left leg was amputated. After rehabilitation, he now runs with a prosthetic limb.

The Free Palestine movement is (once again) upset.

This time, it is because Adidas launched a new "single-shoe" campaign for people living with amputations, featuring an Israeli.

One person they collaborated with was Shalev Biton, a former IDF soldier who lost a leg while… pic.twitter.com/3R5cPajYdh

— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) September 4, 2026

He posted the clip to his Instagram account to laud the Single Shoe service, while speaking about how much it meant to him to be able to pay for only a single shoe, rather than buying a pair.

The Hebrew-language video made no mention of his army service or how he lost his leg.

However, a wave of social media criticism erupted with activists urging a boycott of Adidas. Much of the criticism falsely claimed that Biton was involved in the recent fighting in Gaza and accused him of having participated in “genocide,” or that he had lost his leg while serving in Gaza in 2021.

Activists posted images of Biton running with his prosthetic leg alongside photos of Gazan amputee children. Among those who reportedly have called for the boycott are Spanish actor Javier Bardem and Palestinian activist Abeer Khatib.

Khatib, who has over 300,000 followers on X, posted last week, “I’m burning every Adidas product I own.”

The Eye on Palestine activist group, which also has over 300,000 followers on X, posted last Thursday that Adidas’s choice of Bitan “has sparked a wave of anger and sharp criticism, given that it highlights a soldier belonging to the occupation army—which is responsible for causing the highest percentage of child amputees in the world—while completely ignoring the tragedy of Palestinian victims who have lost their limbs as a result of the ongoing aggression.”

In a follow-up post on Saturday, Biton posted to Instagram about the “crazy wave of hate and reports all over the world” that he has faced.

“The truth is, at the moment I am getting a lot more hate than love,” he wrote and asked his followers to share the post so that, in the face of the “millions” who are hounding him, “I want to feel that you are here with me.”

In a statement, Adidas said, “We are aware that interpretations in recent days have misrepresented the purpose of the service. It is important to clarify that this is a global initiative intended to expand choice and accessibility for athletes and consumers around the world.”

The video that Biton had posted was no longer available on his Instagram account on Sunday. It has been widely shared on social media by both critics of Adidas and those backing Biton.

The recent war in Gaza began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas led an invasion of southern Israel that killed 1,200 people.

Israel, which denies that its military response was a “genocide,” says it strives to avoid civilian casualties and accuses Hamas of embedding itself among civilians.