Earlier this week, the Palestinian Olympic body called on the International Olympic Committee to exclude Israel from the Paris Games which officially opens on Friday and runs until August 11.
Football fans waved Palestinian flags during the match between Israel and Mali at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris on Wednesday.
Before the kick-off, some sections of the crowd at the Paris Parc des Princes Stadium booed the Israeli national anthem.
A group of spectators also stood in the front row of the seating near the pitch with their t-shirts each displaying a letter to read out “Free Palestine.”
In video footage shared on social media, a spectator is seen trying to grab the Palestinian flag that another spectator was waving.
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The rest of the game, attended by Israeli President Isaac Herzog, reportedly continued without major security incidents.
France deployed about 1,000 police officers backed by Israel’s internal security service, Shin Bet, at the game, according to Reuters.
‘Not Welcome’
Earlier this week, the Palestinian Olympic body called on the International Olympic Committee to exclude Israel from the Paris Games which officially opens on Friday and runs until August 11.
On Saturday, a left-wing member of the French parliament said the Israeli delegation was not welcome at the Paris Games.
Thomas Portes, from the France Unbowed (LFI) party, told a rally in support of Palestine “I’m here to say that no, the Israeli delegation is not welcome in Paris. Israeli athletes are not welcome at the Paris Olympic Games.”
He later told the daily Le Parisien: “French diplomacy must put pressure on the International Olympic Committee so that the Israeli flag and anthem are not admitted in the Olympic Games, just as this was done for Russia.”
Portes added: “We must put an end to this double standard.”
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Calls to FIFA
Last month, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland to demand that Israel be barred from competing at the Paris Games amid the ongoing genocidal assault on Gaza.
Protesters pointed out that the committee “only took a few days” to exclude Russia and Belarus from the 2022 Olympics over the war in Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022.
Calls have also been made to football’s world governing body, FIFA, to suspend Israel from international competitions.
Ongoing Genocide
Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza. The country is currently on trial before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for genocide committed in the enclave since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 39,145 Palestinians have been killed, and 90,257 wounded. Moreover, at least 11,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Later in the war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians began moving from the south to central Gaza in a constant search for safety.
(PC, Anadolu, MEMO)
