Fadi Aldeeb honored to be Palestine's only Paralympian

(CNN) — When athletes paraded down Paris’ Champs-Élysées for the opening ceremony of the Paralympics earlier this week, many did so as a cast of tens or even hundreds, shoulder to shoulder with their teammates and compatriots.

But not Fadi Aldeeb. He is the only Paralympic athlete representing the Palestinian flag in Paris, and that honor, Aldeeb believes, has never felt more significant than now.

He says that he feels “lucky” and “happy” to be part of the Games while the war between Israel and Hamas rages on in his homeland, despite also being burdened with a sense of duty.

“It’s like too much stress, too much responsibility, really,” Aldeeb tells CNN Sport’s Don Riddell about his role as the sole Palestinian athlete at the Paralympics.

“There’s too much responsibility in this time … to show the people that you are from Palestine. This is the flag of Palestine – we are still alive, we are still here, and to show the people there is also life in Palestine.”

The 39-year-old Aldeeb, a wheelchair basketball player originally from the Gaza Strip, will compete in shot put at the Paris Paralympics. The only other Palestinian representatives at the Games will be Aldeeb’s coach and the president of Palestine’s Paralympic committee.

When he first learned about his selection via his coach, Aldeeb says that he put down the phone and immediately began to cry. Now, he feels emboldened by a sense of responsibility heading into his first Paralympics.

“I’m here as a Palestinian to give the world a message that Palestine is here, we are not dying and there’s people searching in Gaza, in Palestine, for humanity, human rights and everything like this,” says Deeb.

In 1995, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) recognized the National Olympic Committee of Palestine as a member, allowing Palestinian athletes to compete in the Games.

Eight athletes featured at the Paris Olympics several weeks ago, competing in athletics, taekwondo, shooting, swimming, judo, and boxing. None of those athletes made the podium, but perhaps just being there was a victory in itself.

“Whether a medal or not, we already win,” swimmer Yazan Al Bawwab told Reuters ahead of the Games.

Earlier this month, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza announced that more than 40,000 Palestinians had been killed during the 10 months of conflict in the enclave. CNN cannot independently verify the health ministry’s numbers.

The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its figures but says most of the dead are women and children. Israel said last month that it had killed more than 17,000 combatants in Gaza since the start of the war.

For Aldeeb, it has also been a period of personal tragedy. He has lost his brother and two nephews during the conflict, all while trying to prepare for the biggest sporting event of his career.

“This is so difficult,” he says. “You can imagine that you are doing your sport to be ready for the Paralympic Games, and at the same time, you are also human. You think about your family, about many things; it’s a complicated feeling.”

A decade away from home

It’s been 10 years since Aldeeb last returned to his family in Gaza, with his career as a basketball player taking him to Turkey, Greece and France, where he now lives. But that’s not to say that he has been untouched by the violence back home.

In 2001, during the Palestinian uprising known as the Second Intifada, Aldeeb says that he was shot in the back by a sniper. Only 18 at the time and a promising volleyball player, he spent 14 months rehabilitating in two hospitals and has been paralyzed ever since due to fractures to his T11 and T12 vertebrae.

Coming to terms with the life-changing injury was a long and arduous process, especially for Aldeeb’s parents.

“It’s like [it] killed them,” he says. “I watched them, how much they are crying when they are looking at me after I get my disability … It’s very difficult for them to understand what happened.”

But his sporting career has given Aldeeb a renewed sense of purpose and motivation. He took up basketball in 2004 and then athletics in 2007, forging what he calls a “new life” – away from Gaza and his family.

“Normal people cannot be living in Gaza – how can you imagine a person with a disability being there?” he says. “So for 10 years, I’ve not seen my family, my brothers, my sisters, my uncles, my whole family.

“It’s also not just the people. It’s also about the feelings for the buildings, for the land, for everything. So it’s complicated – for 10 years, I’ve not been there.”

A shoulder injury prevented Aldeeb from competing at the London Paralympics in 2012, but now, a few days shy of his 40th birthday, he is ready to make his Paralympic debut at the Stade de France on Friday – one man representing more than 14 million Palestinians around the world.

In return, the support from his compatriots has continued to spur him on.

“I get many messages from different friends in Gaza, in the West Bank, around the world,” says Aldeeb. “So they are supporting me, [they say], ‘We are with you, we are supporting you, so keep going – this is the message from your country.’”

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