Shin Bet security agents to secure Israeli athletes throughout Paris Olympics
Israeli agents likely already in France, former Shin Bet chief tells Telegraph; budget for Israel’s security has doubled since Tokyo Games; France on highest security alert
Shin Bet security agents are heading to Paris to protect Israeli athletes throughout the upcoming Olympic Games, set to begin on Friday, the UK’s Telegraph newspaper reported.
Israeli security agents are likely in France already, “checking the ground,” former Shin Bet chief Yaakov Peri told the newspaper on Saturday.
Israel’s Olympic athletes have been receiving threatening messages by email and phone in the last week, according to Hebrew media reports over the weekend, as France is on its highest security alert in preparation for the games.
Sports and Culture Minister Miki Zohar told the Telegraph that the budget for Israel’s security team has been doubled since the Tokyo Games in 2021, and that preparations for the Games have been in the works for “more than a year.”
The guards will be armed and will work in cooperation with local French security and Parisian police forces, former Shin Bet official Lior Akerman said.
In total, 88 Israeli athletes and delegation members will receive security coverage, although they won’t all have a personal bodyguard, Zohar said.
Speaking to the Telegraph, a diplomatic official said that the Israeli team is expected to participate in the games as normal, and would not miss out on any events as a result of antisemitism or anti-Israel sentiments in Paris.
Antisemitic incidents have surged in France since war broke out between Israel and the Hamas terror group on October 7 of last year, when thousands of terrorists invaded southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.
In June, two 13-year-old boys were charged with the antisemitic gang rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl in a Paris suburb. Later that month, prosecutors charged two teenagers with planning a terror attack on Jewish targets.
On Friday, French police arrested a man who allegedly expressed support for Hamas while trying to murder a taxi driver with a knife.
Protests in France have called for Israel to be banned from the Olympics because of the war, or to at least be placed under the same restrictions as Russia, which was not allowed to fly its flag at the Tokyo Games in 2021 and was banned from the Paris opening ceremony later this week.
Hard-left French lawmaker Thomas Portes, of the France Unbowed (LFI) party, made headlines over the weekend for saying at a demonstration that “the Israeli delegation is not welcome in Paris. Israeli sportspeople are not welcome at the Paris Olympic Games.”
Portes called for “mobilization” around the games, telling a Parisian newspaper, “France’s diplomats should pressure the International Olympic Committee to bar the Israeli flag and anthem, as is done for Russia.”
Yonathan Arfi, head of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France, said Portes was “putting a target on the backs of Israeli athletes,” who are “already the most in danger at the Olympic Games.”
Some threats sent to Israeli athletes in recent days have made reference to the Munich Massacre in 1972, when the Black September terror group broke into the Olympic village and took Israeli athletes hostage, eventually killing 11 as well as a German police officer.
“The threat against the team can come from anywhere. There is no doubt that there’s a danger,” said Peri, the former Shin Bet chief. “It can be Hamas or other terrorists, but Iran is behind almost everything. And France is of particular concern due to the level of antisemitism there.”
The Shin Bet has accompanied the Israeli athletes to previous Olympic Games, including the London 2012 Olympics, and at the 2016 Rio Olympics, the Israeli-owned International Security & Defense Systems was selected to manage security for the entire event.
The opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics will take place on Friday, July 26, though some competitions will begin already on Wednesday. The games will continue until a closing ceremony on August 11.
