Majed Abu Maraheel[a] (Arabic: ماجد أبو مراحيل, romanized: Mājid ʾAbū Marāḥīl, Arabic pronunciation: [maːd͡ʒid ʔabuː maraħiːl]; 5 June 1963 – 11 June 2024) was a Palestinian long-distance runner, football player, security officer, and athletics coach, who was the first Palestinian to compete at the Olympic Games.

In his international sporting career, Abu Maraheel competed in the 1995 Arab Athletics Championships, barely being able to attend the event after a lengthy detainment by Egyptian border authorities.

Majed Abu Maraheel was born on 5 June 1963, in a family of Bedouin[2] Palestinian refugees at the Nuseirat camp in the Gaza Strip.

[6] He dropped out of school at twelve years old and continued to play football, initially hoping to represent the Palestinian national team.

[6] He later began work as a laborer, tending flowers in Israeli greenhouses and regularly running around 20 kilometers (12 mi) barefoot from his home in Gaza City to catch a bus at the Erez border checkpoint.

"[2] In 1991, during the First Intifada, he was caught in a crossfire and shot in the arm by an Israeli soldier, penetrating the bone and leaving a three-inch (7.6 cm) scar.

Though he came out of retirement in 2004, to represent the team in a summer tournament organized by the Palestinian Al-Ahly Club, which was held at the Palestine Stadium.

[14] Nabil Mabrouk, president of the Palestinian Track and Field Federation and member of the Palestine Olympic Committee (POC), saw Abu Maraheel in a football match in 1994 between his team and the Al-Tuffah Club.

[4] He won his division in an eight-kilometer (4.97 mi) race against 500 other men, receiving a trophy and a kiss from Yasser Arafat, President of the Palestinian National Authority and senior leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, during the awards ceremony.

Gaza was considered a particularly dangerous area for Arafat, due to intense opposition from the political and militant organization Hamas.

[3] He arrived shortly before the event, and without prior sleep, placed tenth in 36:22.0, with Alyan Sultan Al-Qahtani of Saudi Arabia winning the gold medal seven minutes ahead of him.

Abu Maraheel and Salama shook hands, traded pins, and posed for photos with members of the Israeli delegation during the ceremony.

[21] Abu Maraheel was described by the Daily Press as unlikely to medal at the Games due to his personal best of around 30:00 for the 10,000 meters, almost three minutes behind the contemporary Olympic and world record.

"[21] Abu Maraheel became the first Palestinian to compete in the Olympic Games on 26 July 1996,[25] running and finishing with a time of 34:40.50, almost seven minutes behind the heat winner, Ethiopian runner Worku Bikila.

He also became the vice president of the Palestine Athletic Federation,[26] and a board member and supervisor for his former football team, Al-Zaytoun Sports Club.

[28] He coached the Palestinian national athletics team, including future Olympian Nader al-Masri, at the 1999 IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Belfast.

[5] An area near his house in Zeitoun was bombed by Israeli F-16 planes during the 2014 Gaza War, with one of his sons, Khaled, being seriously injured when a fragment of a missile was lodged in his head.

[9] According to Middle East Eye and Maktoob Media, his brother stated that he alongside his family tried to evacuate him through the Rafah Border Crossing for treatment in Egypt, but could not due to the blockade of the Gaza Strip imposed by the Israeli government.