It is unlikely that any team has arrived at an Olympic Games in the way the Israel men’s soccer squad did at Parc des Princes on Wednesday night. Leading the procession were police vans, dozens of them filled with French riot squads and surrounded by a phalanx of motorcycle officers. The Israelis traveled in a cocoon of security in the middle of the vast convoy, holed up on a special Games-time shuttle bus. Then came more vans, more police escorts, more sirens: an impressive show of force with a single purpose, shielding the first Israeli athletes to take the field in Paris.
The security of the Israeli team at the Olympics, at any Olympics, has been a critical issue ever since 11 athletes and coaches were murdered at the Munich Games in 1972. The current war in Gaza and the worldwide protests that have accompanied it have made the Paris Games perhaps the most fraught athletic event that Israeli athletes have participated in in the five decades since then. For the organizers of Paris 2024, the mere presence of the Israeli delegation has been the chief security concern after only the vast opening ceremony scheduled for Friday along the Seine.
#israeli-football-team #parc-des-princes #olympic-games-security #munich-1972-attack #paris-2024-olympics
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