APAwire - APAwire CLIENTS ONLY, Gaza - 22 August 2021. Palestinian coach Osama Ayoub, 35, trains girls in boxing in Gaza City.
RESTRICTION SUMMARY: APAwire CLIENTS ONLY SHOTLIST: APAwire - APAwire CLIENTS ONLY, Gaza - 22 August 2021. Palestinian coach Osama Ayoub, 35, trains girls in boxing in Gaza City. 0.1 SOUNDBITE (in Arabic) Osama Ayoub. STORYLINE: Ayoub boxed all over the Arab world and when he returned to Gaza in 2013, he started introducing the sport to Palestinian women, initially outdoors on the beach -- in public -- an attempt to normalize a combat sport in a strict, conservative society. "One of the biggest challenges I had was the way the society is looking at those girls," Ayoub recalled. "People would say look at those girls, what they are doing instead of being at home beside their mothers. We changed the way the society is looking at those girls." The coach says that if he had enough space, he would already have 100 girls training. Israel has continued its 14-year blockade against Gaza for reasons beyond the military and the strategic. The blockade crushes the aspirations that Palestinian people might have for justice, self-determination, or even a better life. That’s what makes sports so potent and popular among young people in Gaza. Coach Ayoub says that his own inspiration for the team came from girl’s and women’s boxing teams in Egypt, Lebanon, and Algeria. “I wanted to create a Palestinian girls’ team,” he says. “Women are equal to men and they are half of the society here in Gaza. It also helps to build strength and protect them from any danger.” “There was a bit of a surprise,” he says. “But then it became accepted, because I was training girls at the seashore, at the corniche [the beachfront], and in public places so that the idea would be accepted by Gazan society.” Ayob sees not just health, exercise, and competition emerging from this endeavor but also national pride. “Naturally, it is just a sport,” he says, “but we would like to raise the flag of Palestine at all Arab and foreign forums and throughout the world, so that the flag of Palestine may be held high.” Footage by / APAwire
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