PARIS: Palestinian swimmer Yazan Al Bawwab pointed to his country’s flag while participating in the 100-metre backstroke race at the Paris Olympics.
The 24-year-old swimmer explained what it meant to represent his country that not only lacks a pool but struggling for basics like water and food.
“France does not recognise Palestine. Yet here I am with a flag on my chest,” he said after finishing third in the race.
“I’m very, very happy … to raise my flag, to have time just for Palestine, a lane just for Palestine. I think this is my message of peace,” he said.
“We’re trying to get the world to know that we’re human beings. I can play sports like everybody else,” he told reporters.
France in May said that conditions were not right to officially recognise a Palestinian state saying the decision must be more than political scoring.
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According to the Gaza health ministry Israel’s war on the besieged enclave, now on its 296th day, has killed at least 39,324 Palestinians — the majority of them women and children –– and injured 90,830 others, with more than 10,000 estimated to be buried under the debris.
Al Bawwab, an aerospace engineer who is, educated in Canada and Britain, lives in Dubai where he runs a furniture business. His father had been a refugee in Italy.
“I look at people like my dad who came from nothing,” he said. “I’m never complaining in the pool, I remember people in Gaza, people in Palestine that suffer properly. I don’t mind if I’m waking up at 5 am. It’s not a problem,” the swimmer said.
“A lot of people don’t want us to be here. They don’t want to see the flag. They don’t want to hear my country’s name,” he said. “They don’t want me to exist. They want me to leave. But I’m here.”
