The opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, held in Paris, will be taking place tonight. Thousands of athletes from all over the world will participate, including a large Israeli delegation of more than 100 athletes. The Israeli flag will be carried by Judo fighter Peter Palchik (who won a bronze medal with the Judo team in Tokyo, 2021) and swimmer Andy Morez. In addition, dozens of leaders from around the world will participate in the opening ceremony, including President Yitzhak Herzog.
“I told the athletes that they can imagine that there are hostages in Gaza,” he said, “and suddenly they see some kind of sports news flash on some media channel, and it can give them tremendous emotional support. I hope in every way we get the hostages home soon, there were major breakthroughs in Washington yesterday. You will also see in the next two days a new outline that can bring the hostages home with a supreme effort. I keep repeating my call to bring them home quickly. I’ve talked about it with 40 leaders I’ve met.”
The effects of the war in Gaza have not spared the Olympics, and the French host has made sure to secure on a huge scale (which makes this Olympics, apparently, the most secured sporting event in history), which places an emphasis on the peace of the Israeli delegation and President Herzog. Various terrorist elements have already made threats to attack the Olympics, as well as more specific threats to Israel; indeed, this morning there was an incident on the computer network of France’s rail system, which led to widespread disruptions that delayed hundreds of thousands of passengers. It is suspected that a cyber attack was organized by terrorist organizations.
Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz addressed the rail incident in France, and hung the blame on Iran: “The sabotage of rail infrastructure across France toward the opening of the Paris Olympics was planned and carried out inspired by the evil axis of Iran and radical Islam. As I warned my French colleagues this week, based on information provided by Israel, the Iranians are planning terrorist attacks against the Israeli delegation and all the participants of the Olympics, and increased preventive activity must be taken to thwart their plot. The free world must stop Iran now – before it is too late.” Israel will certainly not allow a repeat of the events of Munich, 1972.
