Israel staring at Paris Olympics ban for killing Palestinian athletes

By Reza Javadi

The Palestinian football fraternity is mourning the loss of Hani Al-Mossader, a veteran player and coach of the Palestinian Olympic football team, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza last week.

Known as Abu al-Abed in the football circles of Palestine, he became the latest victim of the occupying regime's genocidal war, which has not even spared athletes.

“Abu al-Abed rose (to martyrdom – PC) due to the occupation aggression on the Gaza Strip for the third month, joining the constellation of football martyrs and martyrs of the Palestinian sports movement,” the Palestinian Football Association said in a statement.

According to Palestinian media, since October 7, at least 88 Palestinian athletes have been killed in Israeli airstrikes, with 67 football players among them.

"At least 88 athletes in team and individual sports, including 67 football players were killed. Additionally, 24 officials from managerial and technical staff also lost their lives in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza," read a statement posted on the official PFA website.

The association said it has sent “urgent letters to the International Olympic Committee and all international, continental and regional federations (including FIFA) calling for an urgent international investigation into the crimes of the occupation against sports and the  in Palestine."

Sports infrastructure in the besieged coastal territory has also come under devastating Israeli aerial blitz in the past three months, resulting in widespread destruction.

Condemning the Israeli army's actions, the Gaza-based Supreme Council for Sports said the Israeli army has killed hundreds of sports figures and destroyed dozens of playfields.

Playfields turn into torture chambers

The council said stadiums and sports clubs have turned into torture and execution centers, including the Yarmuk Stadium in Gaza City.

Images and videos showing young Palestinians being stripped down to their underwear and held in large numbers at gunpoint by the Israeli army in the Yarmuk Stadium, in northern Gaza, came as a shock to many football fans worldwide.

The Gaza-based council urged international authorities to take decisive action and hold the regime forces accountable for inhumane activities inflicted upon athletes.

In mid-December, a PFA report highlighted the destruction of at least nine sports facilities, four in the occupied West Bank and five in the Gaza Strip.

It also sounded alarm over the detention of athletes in the occupied West Bank towns, and injuries they sustained during Israeli military raids.

In Late December, a prominent Palestinian footballer, Ahmed Daraghmeh, 23, was killed by Israeli forces when they entered the city of Nablus to escort Jewish settlers to a site known as the biblical Joseph's Tomb in the occupied West Bank city.

Local Palestinians say stories of many Palestinian athletes killed since October 7 remain untold amid the information blackout.

Palestine in Olympics

Despite heavy odds, Palestinian athletes have not lost hope and are confident to compete in international sporting events this year, including the AFC Asia Cup and 2024 Summer Olympics to be hosted by Paris.

So far, two Palestinian athletes, Ahmed-al-Zahhar and Wasim Naief, have expressed their intention to compete in the Archery event at the 2024 Summer Olympics.

Amid the massive anti-Israel sentiment sweeping the world, there is a likelihood of athletes refusing to compete against their Israeli opponents in international events.

Palestinian wrestler Rabbia Khalil, who trains in Germany and aspires to compete in Paris, has already declared his unwillingness to compete against Israeli athletes.

He anticipates that more Arabic or pro-Palestine athletes may boycott competitions if required to compete against Israeli athletes, as athletes may become increasingly prepared to accept the associated consequences.

In the past, many international sports stars have refused to turn up against their Israeli opponents in international sporting events, including the Olympics, as a mark of protest against the apartheid entity's war crimes against Palestinians.

Iranian athletes, for example, have been leading this anti-Israel boycott.

Exclusion of Israel from Paris 2024 Olympics

In light of the Israeli regime's continued aggression against Palestinians in Gaza, calls to bar Israel from the 2024 Paris Olympics have gained momentum, reflecting a growing global concern over the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the territory.

Recently, a US-based magazine delved into the prospect of Israel's participation in the Paris Olympics next year, asking whether it should face penalties or outright exclusion.

"​Israel’s attacks on Gaza raise a question that Western powers in the world of sports would like to avoid: Should Israel be penalized or even barred from competing in the Paris 2024 Olympics?" The Nation wrote in a report.

A prominent football journalist, in an interview with Press TV on Wednesday, decried the "hypocrisy" of international sports organizations for their failure to ban Israel from global sporting events over its ongoing genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.

Nima Tavallaey Roodsari, endorsing a petition run by the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25), said Israel also must be barred from international sporting events if Russia was barred over the Ukraine war.

"This hypocrisy just cannot continue to stand, and if it does I fear that's the beginning of the end of international sporting organizations as we know it," he said.

The petition states that Western governments continue to toe the official line of Israel, ignoring the genocide unfolding in Gaza, with over 23,000 killed so far.

" The International Olympic Committee, FIFA, UEFA, FIBA, and other sports organizations are complicit as they allow continuous participation of the occupying apartheid regime in their events. Following a swift response and an instant suspension of Russia, it is now difficult for them to justify turning a blind eye to the Israeli government’s actions," it stated.

Tragedy of Gaza

According to rights groups, a Palestinian is killed every four minutes in Gaza, mostly children and more than 80 percent of the population is on the brink of starvation.

Shockingly, the death toll in Gaza within the first 25 days of the war surpassed the casualties in the war in Ukraine, which has been going on for over a year and a half.

The numbers paint a grim picture—more than 23,000 Palestinians, the majority of them women and children, have lost their lives, with nearly 59,000 injured.

The Zionist regime's targeted strikes have crippled medical facilities, rendering more than 25 hospitals out of service and endangering millions of lives.

Reports indicate that the power of Israeli bombs in Gaza exceeded that of the Little Boy nuclear bomb used in Hiroshima, with an equivalent of 10 kilograms of explosives for each Palestinian residing in the Gaza Strip.

Tragically, within three weeks of the war, the number of Palestinian children martyred surpassed the global count for children killed in all parts of the world since 2019.

Experts believe banning Israel from the Paris Olympics is the least the international sports fraternity can do to hold the regime accountable for its genocide in Gaza.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk