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Heavy toll on Palestinian athletes as Paris Olympics set to begin
Weightlifting champion Mohammed Hamada, who carried the Palestinian flag at the Tokyo Olympics, lost his spot in the Paris qualifiers due to war-related hardships.
In Gaza, he carried water daily, lost 20kg (44 pounds) and injured his knee.
Palestinian sport faces immense challenges due to Israeli restrictions in the occupied West Bank and Israel’s war on Gaza, with many facilities destroyed and athletes training abroad.
Despite this, Hamada continues training in Doha and views Palestine’s participation in global sport as a significant victory amid adversity.
French president says Israeli athletes ‘welcome’ at Paris Olympics
Emmanuel Macron has rejected calls from the Palestinian Olympic Committee and some French left-wing lawmakers for a boycott of Israeli athletes at the Olympics, saying they are “welcome” at the Paris Games.
“Israeli athletes are welcome in our country. They must be able to compete under their colours because the Olympic movement has decided it,” Macron told France 2 television.
On the situation in Gaza, Macron said Israel has “the right to defend itself”, but said its continued assault on the besieged enclave was “unacceptable”.
Earlier, we reported that the Palestinian Olympic Committee sent a letter to the International Olympic Committee asking for Israel to be excluded from the games.
In the letter, it accused Israel of breaching the traditional Olympic truce, which should run from July 19 until after the Paralympics in mid-September, with its war in Gaza.
ICJ ‘apartheid’ findings mean Israel should be banned from Olympics: Advocate
Fadi Quran, the campaign director at the rights and advocacy group Avaaz, has said Israel should be barred from the Olympics due to the recent findings from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Israel is committing “apartheid and systematic discrimination”.
“The IOC has a policy prohibiting apartheid and systematic discrimination,” Quran said, which “the ICJ has confirmed that Israel is guilty of”.
Quran, who is also a Palestinian community organiser, said that ignoring a request from the Palestinian Olympic Committee to exclude Israel would “permanently stain the Paris Olympics and every member of the Olympic committee”.
The International Olympic Committee banned South Africa from participating in the Olympics from 1964 until 1992, due to its policies of racial segregation and apartheid.
