“We have hopes, we have dreams, we have goals,” Fadi Deeb says of the great responsibility of representing Palestinians.
Fadi Deeb represents Palestine as a shot putter in the 2024 Paralympics and is the only member of Palestine’s Olympic delegation from Gaza. He describes being shot by an Israeli sniper in 2001, which caused his disability; losing many family members in the current Israeli assault on Gaza; and why he feels a great responsibility in representing Palestinians on the world stage.
My name is Fadi al-Deeb. I’m as a Palestinian from Gaza Strip, in the east of Gaza. My neighborhood is Shuja’iyya area, in the east of Gaza. On the 4th of October, 2001, I get my disability in the Second Intifada by — I get shot in my back from the Israeli sniper. So, this is what happened with me. And I get my disability from 2001 up to now.
To be a player and to compete in this competition for the Paris 2024 is something like — gives me, like, too much responsibility to talk about my country, to show the people about Palestine. It’s not just war. It’s not just blood. There is life. There is hopes. There is goals. There is dreams. So, I have a message.
So, what is happening now is like a — it’s a genocide. It’s not a war. It’s like a genocide. My family have a bad situation, the same of all of the Palestinians in Gaza Strip. I lost my brother on the 7th of December, 2023, and two of my nephews, also two. And for whole of my family members, I lost like more than, like, 17 persons. So, the situation is very hard. It’s too much hard to focus about my sport.
What I want to explain for you is, like, in the same time, it’s a very hard situation. And also, as example, we are, as a people, disability in our sport, so we are training before this genocide in our sport. It’s very hard, because all of —. Fadi Deeb represents Palestine as a shot putter in the 2024 Paralympics, which begin later this month, the only member of the Palestinian Olympic delegation from Gaza. And I want to thank Shireen Ahmed and Dave Zirin. I’m Amy Goodman.
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