Israeli athletes receive threats in Paris as tensions simmer over Gaza

Israeli Olympic team faces threats amid tensions in Paris over Palestinian deaths, highlighting political turmoil at the Games.

Israel's Olympic team said some athletes have received threats as they compete in Paris amid larger tensions over Palestinian deaths during the war in Gaza and the threat of a wider regional conflict in the Middle East.

Yael Arad, president of the Israeli National Olympic Committee, told The Associated Press on Tuesday (August 6, 2024) that team members had received “centralized” threats meant to generate “psychological terror” in athletes, without giving further details.

Last week, Paris prosecutors opened an investigation into emailed death threats to Israeli athletes, and the national cybercrime agency is looking into the leak of some Israeli athletes' personal data online, which has since been taken down. Prosecutors also launched an inquiry into inciting racial hated after Israeli athletes received ‘’discriminatory gestures" during an Israel-Paraguay match.

Tom Reuveny, a 24-year-old Israeli athlete who won a gold in wind surfing over the weekend, was among those who said he’s received threats. Politics “should be put aside” during the Games, he told AP during a memorial Tuesday for 11 Israeli athletes killed during the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany.

“I don’t think any politics should be involved in sport, especially in the Olympic Games,” Mr. Reuveny said. "Unfortunately, there is a lot of politics involved — not in the Games — of the people who don’t want us to compete and don’t want us to be here. I’ve gotten quite a few messages and threats.”

While Israel has called for the Olympics to remain a neutral space, the Palestinian delegation has used the Games as a way to generate conversation about the day-to-day struggles of those in Gaza. The Israel-Hamas war has claimed more than 39,000 Palestinian lives.

“The thing that really hurts me is that people are looking at Palestinians as just numbers now. The number of people that died. The number of people displaced," Palestinian American Olympic swimmer Valerie Tarazi told the AP on Sunday.