Fadi Aldeeb, the only Palestinian participant in the Paralympics in Paris, thinks of his brother killed by an Israeli attack while being the voice of the Palestinians.
Nine months ago, Fadi Aldeeb missed several calls from his brother. The next day, he found out that he had been killed in an Israeli attack on his home. Aldeeb is the only Palestinian athlete competing at the Paris Paralympics. However, he left Gaza a decade ago for a wheelchair basketball career that took him to Turkey and Greece before France.
“On December 6, I had a French league game, and when I was finished, I found my brother called me many times … I tried to call back, but there was no connection,” Aldeeb, who took part in the Paralympics shot put, told Reuters.
“December 7 at night, I received [the news] that ‘Okay, your brother was killed in an attack on our building,'” Aldeeb said, adding he often wonders what his brother’s last message was. At the Paralympics, Aldeeb will face the pressure in Paris to be, as he describes it, the voice of his people.
“It’s too many feelings, too much responsibility, because I’m not speaking about myself, I’m not playing for myself. I’m here for 11 million, for all who say I’m a Palestinian, for all who talk about humanity, and to talk about the freedom of Palestine,” he said.
“When we are raising the flag here in Paris, we are showing we are still alive, we still need our human rights, we still need our freedom,” he said. The Palestine Olympic Committee was recognised three decades ago by the International Olympic Committee. Gaza has a population of about 2.3 million people, and millions more Palestinians live elsewhere.
Aldeeb, 40, said he developed paraplegia when an Israeli soldier shot him in the back during the second Intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation in 2001.
He raises his voice when talking about life in Gaza, where the health ministry says over 40,000 people have been killed since Israel began a devastating offensive against Hamas that led to an attack on southern Israel on October 7 last year.
According to Israeli tallies, about 1,200 people have been killed and around 250 taken hostage in the attack so far. Aldeeb, who, following the Paralympics, will remain in wheelchair basketball and will continue competing in Paris suburb Genevilliers, described Israel’s military as a “killing machine.”
“There is no difference between athletes, disabled or non-disabled, children or women, big or small homes, hospitals, hotels, universities or schools for them,” he said. It also declares that Israel’s military offence is not intended to hurt civilians, only Hamas. The military says Hamas fighters hide in public institutions such as hospitals for cover, and that puts civilians in harm’s way. It says it takes huge precautions to avoid civilian casualties.
Aldeeb, however, was unequivocal in his discomfort at the presence of the Israeli athletes in Paris, which held a ceremony before the Games to honour Israeli Olympic team members killed by Palestinian gunmen at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
But welcoming the support he had received from other competitors, he said: “I’m not feeling alone or like I’m alone. These people are incredible. They give me a feeling of humanity.” A far-left lawmaker had said before the Olympics, also held in Paris this summer, that Israel’s delegation was not welcome and called for protests against its participation. France said afterwards that Israeli athletes would be given 24-hour protection.
While the Olympic charter maintains that competitors at the Olympic Games should enjoy freedom of expression, it states that no “political propaganda” is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues, or other areas. Aldeeb was speaking outside the Olympic Village.
