At just 12 years old, Ayala Ohana is about to fulfill a dream most children around the world can only imagine.
In less than two weeks, on June 16, she will walk onto the field at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey and present the ball for the World Cup match between France and Senegal, in front of tens of thousands of fans in the stadium and millions more watching around the world.
Ohana was chosen by Kia, one of the tournament’s main sponsors, as Israel’s only representative at the World Cup. Speaking to ynet studio alongside her father, Hananel Ohana, she said the excitement has not faded.
“Oh my God, I’m so excited,” she said.
Her father said the family received the news about four months ago in a surprising phone call.
“Representatives from Kia Israel called me on behalf of Kia Global,” he said. “They said that in every country, they choose one child who brings a story, meaning and value. From a very respectable list of children in Israel, they chose Ayala, and they asked us to keep it a secret.”
The choice was not random. In recent years, Ayala has become a familiar figure on social media, where she has openly shared her life story and her daily struggle with Gaucher disease, a rare genetic disorder.
“I have Gaucher disease, which is a disease in which the body does not produce an enzyme called glucocerebrosidase,” Ayala explained. “The role of that enzyme is to clean out all the toxins that accumulate in the body. I don’t have that enzyme, so I receive treatment once a week or once every two weeks, which is basically the replacement enzyme. Without that treatment, you can’t live.”
The disease itself was only one of the challenges she has faced. About a year and two months ago, the family went through a frightening ordeal when, during medical treatment, a flesh-eating bacterium entered Ayala’s body and she was hospitalized for an extended period at Rambam Health Care Campus.
“Ayala almost slipped away from us,” her father said painfully. “Thank God, today we have her. She was hospitalized for a long time, and at the same time we also received medical results showing that the disease had affected her bones.”
Alongside the health struggle, Ayala also had to cope with social difficulties at school. For years, she said, several girls bullied her, leaving painful scars.
“I’m in sixth grade, and for almost all of elementary school there were a few girls who bothered me a little,” she said. “You could say they were also a little jealous. Thankfully, my friends in class supported me and helped me and were by my side throughout that whole period.”
The turning point came when she decided to share her story on social media. Together with her father, who is also a content creator, she began posting videos about her illness, treatments and the difficulties she was facing.
The exposure drew wide attention, and their accounts quickly gathered more than half a million followers.
“Suddenly, most of the school was exposed to the videos,” Ayala said. “I shared what I was going through, and people started to understand.”
According to the family, the change was dramatic. The girl who had once felt different and isolated became a source of inspiration for many children and teenagers. Her self-confidence grew, and she began using social media to share messages of self-acceptance, resilience and optimism.
There is also a special symbolism in her World Cup moment. Doctors recently recommended that Ayala take up physical activity as part of coping with the disease’s effect on her bones.
“It’s like a sign from heaven,” her father said. “Here you are, you need to do sports your whole life, and this is part of the light.”
Despite everything she has been through, Ayala remains a regular girl who loves to have fun. Asked whether she even likes soccer, she smiled.
“My brother and I play a lot in the afternoons,” she said.