The Only Paralympian From Gaza Lost 15 Relatives in Israeli Assault

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. “I want to raise my country flag here in Paris and to show the people we are still here, we’re still alive — we have hopes, we have dreams, we have goals,” he says. The Paralympic Games begin in Paris on August 28.

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Dave, introduce our next guest to us, because you wrote a wonderful piece in The Nation about Fadi Deeb representing Palestine as shot putter in the 2024 Paralympics.

DAVE ZIRIN: Well, you’re giving me chills just by asking me the question. Fadi Deeb is one of the incredible people I met in Paris and one of the incredible people I’ve met in all my years doing sports writing, a terrific Paralympian, a terrific representative of the Palestinian people and his home area of Gaza. And I’d like to give the floor to him so his voice can be heard at the moment.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Fadi, you have a split screen right now. Dave is back in Washington. You’re there in Paris, where you’re going to be competing in the next two weeks. Can you tell us your story? You represent Palestine in the Paralympics. Talk about how you became disabled, what it means to represent Palestine, and talk about your sport, shot put.

FADI DEEB: First of all, good evening for you. Good evening for Dave. And it’s my pleasure to be with you in one of the biggest shows in the world and to speak about my story, about my country, about Palestine.

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. First of all, I want to raise my country flag here in Paris and to show the people we are still here, we’re still alive — we have hopes, we have dreams, we have goals — and to send message for all the world about our life as players, as athletes, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Fadi, can you talk about your family now in Gaza? I understand that you have lost a number of members of your family.

FADI DEEB: It’s a very hard situation to, like, make a balance between my sport as international player and one who is going to compete in the Paralympic Games, and at the same time as my family, all of my sisters, my brothers is still in Gaza Strip. To give you these feelings, it’s very hard to focus about what I’m doing. As example, my family, like, look like now four groups, to celebrate as four groups, because if there is one group is attacked, still the second group and the third group is still alive, because everyone — there is no safe place in Gaza Strip, and everyone is like a target for the killing machine.

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. And my feelings and my heart is in my country and what I’m watching in the news and hearing in the news about the blood, about bombed, about attacked. So, everything in Gaza Strip is like a target. So, you don’t — there is no difference between you as a sportman or like a doctor or engineering, or there is no difference between homes or hospitals or anything. So, just to be like — have the nationality as a Palestinian, so it’s like a reason for the machine to be like an enemy and to attack you. So, this is the situation in Gaza Strip now.

AMY GOODMAN: According to Save the Children, more than 10 children per day in Gaza have lost one or both of their legs since Israel began its assault in October. Can you talk about the amputation crisis in this last minute we have, speaking to us from Paris?

FADI DEEB: Normally, as we are in Gaza Strip like 2,300,000 persons in Gaza Strip, so we talk about more than 120,000 people with disability. And in the last war and the last genocide, what happened now in Gaza Strip, we talk about more than 10,000 new people with disability in the last genocide — children, women and men — and they have, like, an amputee and paraplegic. So it’s like a very hard situation, because, as I told before, there’s no difference between any — if you are children or women, so everyone is a target.

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 —

AMY GOODMAN: Fadi Deeb, we’re going to have to wrap up the conversation now, but we’re going to continue. 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. Thanks so much for joining us.