❗️Adidas faces global outrage after featuring Israeli soldier in 'Single Shoe' campaign
German sportswear giant Adidas has ignited an international firestorm by selecting Shalev Biton—an Israeli occupation soldier who lost his leg during a 2021 assault on Gaza—to front its newly launched "Single Shoe Service" in Israel.
The corporate campaign, rolled out across Israeli storefronts, promotes a program allowing lower-limb amputees to purchase a single running shoe at half the price of a full pair.
While Adidas attempts to market the initiative under the banner of corporate inclusivity, human rights advocates and pro-Palestine organizations have blasted the multinational for platforming a soldier tied to the systemic crushing of Gaza.
Social media users and grassroots boycott campaigns condemned the move, drawing a sharp contrast: Adidas showcases an occupation soldier who has helped engineer the largest generation of child amputees in modern history, leaving thousands of Palestinian children in Gaza permanently maimed by bombs and sniper fire who are also being systematically denied basic medical supplies, anesthetics, and prosthetic devices due to the Israeli blockade.
The PR disaster compounds Adidas's grim history of cultural alienation, following its 2024 capitulation to Israeli lobby pressure to drop US-Palestinian supermodel Bella Hadid from a retro sneaker campaign.
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1September 4, 2026 591 1
