Paris security ramped up for Israel soccer match as Gaza tensions rise

A football match between Israel and the West African nation of Mali looms as the first major test of security at the Paris Olympics, as IOC president Thomas Bach expressed his “full confidence” in French authorities to keep Israeli athletes safe throughout the two weeks of the Games.

Elite counter-terrorism police will be part of a bolstered security presence at the Parc des Princes, the venue for Wednesday night’s match, following a surge in anti-Israeli rhetoric directed at the national Olympic team’s presence in Paris and the war in Gaza.

An armed police officer patrols Paris.Credit: Thomas Padilla

Israel’s president Isaac Herzog is reportedly planning to attend the match.

Bach said Olympic and security agencies were dealing with serious risks and “fake threats” directed at Israeli athletes, which he described as deplorable.

“With regard to the security of the Israeli athletes, we have full confidence in the French authorities,” he said. “The French authorities are responsible for security, they are working very meticulously, they were working very professionally.

“The Israeli athletes since 1972 have always taken their own additional security measures. They feel comfortable with this situation, as we know from contact with them.”

At the 1972 Munich Games, Palestinian militants broke into the Olympic Village and murdered 11 Israeli team members and a German policeman. It remains the deadliest terrorist attack at an Olympic Games.

French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin revealed that Israel’s Olympic team of 88 athletes is under 24-hour guard while competing in Paris.

Darmanin made his comments after another member of France’s national assembly, Thomas Portes, declared that Israeli athletes were not welcome in Paris.

“We are a few days away from an international event which will be held in Paris, which is the Olympic Games,” said Portes, a member of the far-left France Unbowed party. “And I am here to say that no, the Israeli delegation is not welcome in Paris. Israeli athletes are not welcome at the Olympic Games in Paris.”

IOC president Thomas Bach and members of the Refugee Olympic Team during the Athletes’ Call for Peace event on Monday.Credit: Getty Images

The Palestinian Olympic Committee has written to Bach urging the IOC to exclude Israel from the Games for breaching what is known as the Olympic truce – a tradition of observing ceasefire which is said to date back to when the ancient Games were played in Greece.

In its letter, the Palestinians accused members of the Israeli Olympic delegation of engaging in “racist anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab and Islamophobic campaigns as well as encouraging war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide”.

Iran has also called for the Israel team to be excluded from the Games. The foreign minister of Iran issued a statement on Twitter, saying the Israeli delegation did not deserve to be in Paris. “Announcing the reception and protection of the apartheid terrorist Zionist regime’s delegation means giving legitimacy to the child killers,” the statement read.

Bach rejected the argument that Israeli athletes should be excluded from the Games because of a war being waged between their government and Hamas. He said the Olympics was a series of sporting competitions between athletes, not governments, and it was imperative for the Olympic movement not to be drawn into political conflicts.

A small group of demonstrators gathered in central Paris on Tuesday to protest the war in Gaza.Credit: Marta Pascual Juanola

“The more people try to politicise the Games and the higher the tensions are, the more important is the message of the Games to try to unite and not to contribute to even more division,” he said on Tuesday night.

“We are there to accomplish our mission to get the athletes together and to welcome all the athletes who are respecting the rules and then, to have peaceful competition.”

Regular peaceful Palestinian protests have continued on the streets of Paris in the build-up to the Games. On Tuesday, a small group of protesters gathered in central Paris without incident.

The football match between Israel and Mali, a former French colony with a large expat population in France, is likely to attract large protests on Wednesday night (Paris time) and potentially attempts to disrupt the match.

Israeli judoka Peter Paltchik passing through a security gate at the Olympic Village.Credit: AP

The London Telegraph quoted a French security source in reporting that members of France’s elite BRI Search and Intervention Brigade would join soldiers, police and gendarmes in forming a “ring of steel” around the Parc des Princes, the home of the popular Paris Saint-Germain club on the eastern edge of the city.

The paper reported that drones would be used to secure a perimeter around the ground.

Global security agency International SOS advised its clients on Tuesday night that authorities would bolster security at the Games due to the heightened risk of social unrest and pro-Palestinian demonstrations were likely around the venue.

The police presence required for the football match will be dwarfed by the massive security operation planned for Friday night, when spectators line the banks of the Seine to watch the opening ceremony. It will be the first Olympics opening ceremony to be staged outside a major stadium.

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