Israeli athletes have received "psychological terror" threats at the 2024 Paris Games, its Olympic Committee has said.
Israeli National Olympic committee President Yael Arad told The Associated Press (AP) on Wednesday that Israeli athletes at the 2024 Olympic Games have faced "centralized" threats meant to stir up "psychological terror."
Similarly, 24-year-old Tom Reuveny of the Israeli Olympic wind surfing team said he received threats amid Israel's ongoing war with Hamas militants in Gaza.
"I don't think any politics should be involved in sport, especially in the Olympic Games," Reuveny told the AP. "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."
Since Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has been engaged in a war with Hamas in Gaza, which has also sparked other conflicts throughout the Middle East. Last month, Hamas and Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced that Hamas Political Bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh was killed in an Israeli strike in Tehran after attending the inauguration ceremony of Iran's new president.
In response, Iran has vowed revenge, with the Iranian Mission to the United Nations saying: "The response to an assassination will indeed be special operations—harder and intended to instill deep regret in the perpetrator."
Last week, Paris prosecutors initiated a probe into an alarming series of emailed death threats received by Israeli athletes at the 2024 Olympic Games. The investigation also includes a probe into racial hatred after Israeli athletes faced "discriminatory gestures" during a football match against Paraguay.
Israel has previously emphasized that the Olympic Games should remain a neutral space for athletes, but the Palestinian delegation has leveraged the Games to spotlight the daily struggles faced by those living in Gaza. More than 39,000 Palestinian individuals have died amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, which began after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
Palestinian American Olympic swimmer Valerie Tarazi also spoke to the AP about the ongoing war and her role in the Olympics, saying: "As athletes, we're here just as everyone else. We want to compete. As people, we have lives...We want to live in our homes, just like everyone else in the world."
"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," Tarazi added.
Earlier this week, the Paris Olympics held a ceremony to honor the 11 Israelis that were killed by members of the Palestinian militant organization Black September during the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany.
During the ceremony, Thomas Bach, the President of the International Olympic Committee, said that the attack was "the darkest day in Olympic history."
About the writer
Matthew Impelli is a Newsweek staff writer based in New York. His focus is reporting social issues and crime. In ... Read more
