Desire for peace on the Champs Elysées: crowds on their feet for athletes from Ukraine and Palestine

Sport is politics. Always. At the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games in Paris, with the exception of the home team, overwhelmed by the joy and applause of the French fans, there were two delegations for which the audience stood up, those of Ukraine and Palestine. The desire for peace walked the Champs Elysees.

The delegation from Palestine consists of only one athlete: Fadi El-Deeb, 39, from Gaza, who competes in the shot put, category F55. He was paralysed in 2001 after an Israeli sniper shot him in the spine. He has no sponsors, no financial resources, no accompanying staff, no family or friends. Impossible in every sense to imagine someone next to him for economic and war reasons: 'As a Palestinian, my body is here,' said Fadi, 'but my mind, my everything, is in the Gaza Strip'. And even stronger is his appeal for rights and peace: 'Just be human, give us the same human rights that others have. We have lives, we have goals, we have dreams. I raised my flag here in Paris to show people that Palestine is not dying. We are still here, we are fighting, we are still alive'.