Shot Putter Paralyzed by Israeli Sniper Is Palestine's Lone Paralympian
"I want to raise my country flag here in Paris and to show the people we are still here," said Fadi Deeb. "We're still alive—we have hopes, we have dreams, we have goals."
Following an Olympic Games that activists said was tainted by the participation Israeli athletes including a flag-bearer who signed bombs bound for Gaza, a shot putter who was disabled by an Israeli sniper and who lost at least 17 relatives to Israel's onslaught is set to be the sole Palestinian competitor at the upcoming Paralympics in Paris.
"I want to raise my country flag here in Paris and to show the people we are still here," 39-year-old Fadi Deeb said during a Monday interview with Democracy Now! ahead of the August 28 Paralympic Opening Ceremony. "We're still alive—we have hopes, we have dreams, we have goals."
"There is no safe place in Gaza... everyone is like a target for the killing machine."
Deeb, who is from Gaza City, was shot in the spine by an Israeli sniper in 2001 during the Second Intifada, or general Palestinian uprising.
"It's a very hard situation to... balance between my sport as an international player and one who is going to compete in the Paralympic Games, and... my family, all of my sisters, my brothers still in Gaza Strip," he explained.
"There is no safe place in Gaza... everyone is like a target for the killing machine," Deeb continued. "So, what is happening now... it's a genocide. It's not a war... I lost my brother on December 7, 2023 and two of my nephews... And for whole of my family members, I lost like more than, like, 17 persons. So, the situation is very hard."
The Palestinian death toll from Israel's 311-day bombardment, invasion, and siege of Gaza surged toward 40,000 on Monday, according to local and international officials, with at least an additional 103,000 people wounded or missing. Most of those killed have been women and children.
Almost all of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced, while Israel's total blockade of the coastal enclave has forced the starvation of at least hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Dozens of Gazans—almost all of them children—have died from malnutrition, dehydration, and lack of medical care.
Asked by Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman about the "amputation crisis" in Gaza—the charity Save the Children says an average of 10 children a day have lost one or more limbs during the war—Deeb said that it's "a very hard situation, because, as I told before, there's no difference... if you are children or women... everyone is a target."
According to the Palestine Olympic Committee and Palestine Football Association (PFA), at least 400 Palestinian athletes, including nearly 70 children, have been killed by Israeli forces since October as of July 26. Among the dead are Hany Al-Masry, a former player and general manager of the Palestinian Olympic soccer team.
Still, eight Palestinians managed to compete in the Paris Olympics, although they did not win any medals.
The International Olympic Committee has been accused of double standards for banning Russian athletes over their country's invasion of Ukraine but allowing Israeli athletes—including Israel Defense Forces veterans and an Olympic flag-bearer who recently signed bombs to be dropped on Gaza—to compete.
Last week, PFA president Jibril Rajub
called Israel's alleged deliberate targeting of Palestinian athletes a blatant violation of the Olympic Charter.
Despite all this, Deeb said he is hopeful.
"To be a player and to compete in this competition for the Paris 2024... gives me, like, too much responsibility to talk about my country, to show the people about Palestine," he said. "It's not just war. It's not just blood. There is life. There is hopes. There is goals. There is dreams."
