‘We will repeat Munich 1972’: Israeli Olympic athletes threatened ahead of Paris Games
Though Israeli security officials say threats generated by bots and are not of real concern, country’s Olympic Committee remains on alert
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.
The first messages were sent to 15 athletes’ emails, and were signed by an entity that identified itself as “the People’s Defense Organization,” which doesn’t exist.
“The People’s Defense Organization announces that it intends to harm any Israeli presence at the Olympics,” the message read, adding that “the Jewish lobby that controls the French Parliament won’t decide anything anymore.”
The letter went on to say that “the fate of the Zionists will be like the fate of the Palestinians in Gaza if the Zionists continue to threaten everyone.”
“Therefore, you’re not invited to Paris 2024. If you come, take into account that we intend to repeat the events of Munich 1972,” the letter continued, referring to the Munich Massacre in which the Black September terrorist group broke into the Olympic village and took Israeli athletes hostage, eventually killing 11 and a German police officer.
“You will be awaiting attack at every moment — in the airport, the hotel, and the streets which belong only to us. Even a wave of arrests against our organization won’t stop us from seeing our plan through. Prepare for the intifada!” the letter ended.
On Saturday, athletes continued to receive threatening messages to their phones written in broken Hebrew.
In addition to the messages, the athletes received phone calls from foreign numbers they didn’t recognize.
Some Israeli athletes, including the Opening Ceremony flagbearer, judoka Peter Paltchik; and swimmer Meiron Amir Cheruti, received invitations to their own funerals.
A screenshot of the message sent to Cheruti showed the message inviting him to his funeral and listing his date of death as July 27, 2024. The message also included a link that supposedly contained directions to the location of the funeral.
Israel’s Olympic Committee said that it was remaining alert for threats to the country’s athletes at the Paris Games but that there was no concern that these threats would be actualized.
“We are obviously taking this seriously and not looking on it lightly, but we are also not getting overexcited,” the committee chairwoman, Yael Arad, said.
“It was clear to us that this kind of trolling would happen. We were prepared for it. We’ve instructed the athletes on how to react if it happens, and we had a lot of conversations and meetings on the subject,” she said, adding that the Israeli team had plenty of security.
Security officials told Ynet on Friday that they had looked into the threats and found that they were generated by a bot and not a real organization that could pose a real threat to athletes.
France is on its highest state of security as it gears up to host millions of visitors, athletes, and world leaders during the Paris Olympic Summer Games, kicking off on Friday.
The Paris 2024 organizing committee has already made assurances that “unprecedented” steps will be implemented to secure the Games, including the deployment of 30,000 police and gendarmes who will be reinforced by roughly 20,000 soldiers. In addition, between 17,000 and 22,000 private security agents are expected for the Olympic sites and fan zones.
Concerns for Israel’s team’s safety are especially high amid the Hamas-Israel war in Gaza, which broke out on October 7 with the terrorist’s shock attack in which some 1,200 people were murdered and 251 were taken hostage.
Protests have called for Israel to be banned from the Games 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 which was banned from the Paris opening ceremony later this week.
In an effort to keep Israeli athletes safe, the team will be accompanied by a record number of Shin Bet guards, Ynet reported on Sunday morning.
Roman Chauvet contributed to this report.
