First Skateboards, Then Boxing. Now Gaza Has Taekwondo

I’ve photographed quite a lot of sport in my life. I don’t remember rubble being part of the kit.

But judging by the latest offerings from Gaza, perhaps I should have paid more attention to the background.

This week’s contribution comes from AJ+, which has published a five-part Instagram carousel celebrating Gaza’s athletes and their determination to keep training during the war.

The opening photograph shows a group of young taekwondo students in their white uniforms, performing their moves in a clearing surrounded by rubble. An instructor stands in the foreground, apparently directing the session.

It’s a striking photograph. The students are neatly arranged, their movements synchronized, and the elevated camera position allows us to see both the training and the surrounding destruction.

As a picture editor, I can appreciate the composition. Someone has made sure we get a good look at both.

The headline across the photograph tells us that Israel destroyed their gyms, equipment and killed their coaches.

The carousel then takes us through the sporting calendar. Taekwondo in 2026, a makeshift gym in 2025, soccer at an UNRWA shelter in 2024, and girls continuing to box after the destruction of what AJ+ describes as Gaza’s first women’s boxing center.

It’s quite a sporting program.

Only recently, I wrote about The Guardian’s skateboard story⁠, where a perfectly interesting account of children learning to skateboard repeatedly returned to the familiar backdrop of damaged buildings and rubble.

Now AJ+ has assembled several sports into one convenient package.

I have no difficulty believing that people in Gaza want to continue playing sport. Good for them. The taekwondo students look committed, the weightlifter is clearly putting in some effort, and the young boxers seem to be enjoying themselves.

There’s a perfectly good story here about people finding ways to carry on.

But AJ+ has already decided how we should understand it. Its caption begins, “Every year, Gaza’s athletes find new ways to keep training under Israel’s genocide.”

Every photograph comes with its own explanation of Israeli responsibility, even when the immediate subject is somebody doing something entirely ordinary.

And the rubble is always conveniently available to complete the composition.

At this rate, I’m beginning to wonder which sport Gaza has left for next week.

I’ve seen enough sporting photographs over the years to know that a photographer can tell a perfectly good story about an athlete without requiring a political explanation for every frame.

AJ+ seems rather less interested in trying.

The sport keeps changing. Somehow, the photograph doesn’t.

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