Who is Fadi Aldeeb, the only Palestinian athlete at the Paris Paralympics

Fadi Aldeeb has been paralyzed since 2001 due to an Israeli bullet in the back.Today he represents the Palestinian people at the Paralympics.

• Fadi Aldeeb was born in 1985 in the Gaza Strip and has been in a wheelchair since the second intifada.
• At the Paralympics he competes in the shot put as the only Palestinian athlete.
• In recent months the Israeli army killed his brother and two nephews in the Gaza Strip.

He is the only Palestinian athlete present at Paris Paralympics.If he is there, it is because in 2001 he lost the use of his legs due to an Israeli bullet. Fadi Aldeeb He is 39 years old and competes in wheelchair shot put, having also specialized in basketball.

In recent months he has lost several family members, including Brother, due to the brutal Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip, which has killed over 40 thousand Palestinians.Today Aldeeb says he is not competing for himself, but for a population of over 14 million people and for all those who care about the human rights.

The story of Fadi Aldeeb

Fadi Aldeeb was born in 1985 in the Gaza Strip, Palestine.In 2001, during the second intifada, the revolt of the Arab populations of the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel, he was also there to protest.The brutal repression of demonstrations by theIsraeli army translated as about 5 thousand dead.Aldeeb survived, but an Israeli bullet hit him in the back, leaving him dead paralyzed.

Aldeeb was a sportsman, a promising Palestinian in men's volleyball.For a while he had to leave the fields, then after the operation and rehabilitation he rolled up his sleeves and specialized first in wheelchair basketball, then inathletics, playing the two sports in parallel.This activity led him to leave the Gaza Strip, where he has not returned for several years, and to move abroad, to Türkiye, Greece and France.But the bond with his land has never been broken and now, with the Paris Paralympics, has become stronger than ever.

Participation in the Paralympics

Fadi Aldeeb was due to participate in the Paralympics as early as 2012, in London.Then he got injured and it now seemed that the dream had vanished, until the call came from the coach who called him up as the only Palestinian athlete at the Paris Paralympics.The Palestinian Olympic Committee was created and recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1995 and since then Palestinian athletes have participated in both the Olympics and the Paralympics.If Aldeeb is the only Palestinian Paralympic athlete of the 2024 edition, at the Olympics which ended at the beginning of August they were in eight.

In the months leading up to the most important competition of his life, the Israeli army killed brother and two nephews of Aldeeb as part of the military offensive on the Gaza Strip, whose toll for now is over 40 thousand deaths.Today Aldeeb, who competes for the wheelchair shot put, feels he has a responsibility, to be the spokesperson of a people of approximately 14 million people, the Palestinian one.

“There are many feelings, many responsibilities.I don't talk about myself, I don't play for myself. I am here for all those who say they are Palestinian, for all those who speak of humanity and the freedom of Palestine", he underlined.Aldeeb has received messages of support from all over the world and not just from the Palestinian people.His is one history symbol, that of a person victim of Israeli oppression.Both as a Palestinian person as such, and as Fadi Aldeeb, paralyzed by an Israeli bullet.