A demonstrator demanding the boycott of Israel during Olympic Games demonstrates with a poster reading "No Games for genocidal, boycott Israel" outside the Paris Olympic organizing committee headquarters

Paris, August 1 (RHC)-- As Israel’s national football team took the field for their opening game of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris last week, their national anthem was greeted with boos from sections of the audience.  Chants of “Free Palestine” rang out.

Israel’s 88 athletes are among more than 10,500 sportspeople from some 200 countries who are participating in the Olympic Games.  In Paris, Israeli athletes are under round-the-clock protection from a specialist elite unit of French police, in addition to their own enhanced security measures.

The country’s participation in the games amid its brutal war on Gaza, in which nearly 40,000 people have been killed, has provoked criticism of Olympics organizers, who have a long history of banning nations deemed to have indulged in acts that contravene the spirit of the games.  Two countries are absent from this year’s Olympics: Russia and Belarus, as a result of the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Those demanding the ban say Israel, which has been accused of genocide by South Africa in its case at the International Court of Justice, must face the consequences of its actions.