The president of the Israeli Olympic committee Yaël Arad assured Thursday that Israel would be “100%” present at the Paris Olympic Games in 2024, a little more than two months after the October 7 attack perpetrated by Hamas and the response to Gaza.

“We are approaching the Olympics with the conviction that we will be there, 100%, that we will be able to participate like any other nation,” declared the former judoka in an interview with the newspaper l’Équipe, published on Wednesday.

On October 7, 2023, an unprecedented attack carried out by the Islamist movement Hamas left around 1,140 dead in Israel, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on the latest official Israeli figures.

Israel responded by launching airstrikes on the Gaza Strip and then a ground offensive. On Wednesday the Hamas government announced that Israeli military operations had left 20,000 dead in Gaza since the start of the war, including at least 8,000 children and 6,200 women.

“We are still in shock from October 7. It’s hard to go to sleep, to open your eyes in the morning. Everyone has lost someone close to them,” said Yael Arad.

According to her, “athletes find it difficult to imagine practicing in these circumstances, of doing anything else that does not help their compatriots”.

But the request from the local committee was for them to “carry high the flag of their nation by representing it at the Olympics”, which will be held in Pais from July 26 to August 11, 2024.

Olympic vice-champion of -61 kilos in 1992, Ms. Arad nevertheless admits that “in many countries today, it is not safe for us to travel as a delegation”, particularly when discussing the World Championships, qualifiers for swimming in February in Qatar.

“We are talking with Qatar and the IOC to study alternatives (…) we are working on it.”

Also asked about fears linked to the attack on the 1972 Munich Olympic Games – eleven Israeli athletes and a German police officer were murdered by the Palestinian “Black September” commando – Yaël Arad explained that “our Olympic family must live with this “.

“Since Munich in 1972, our athletes have always been the subject of special attention”, and “you can be sure that everything will be done on our side to ensure our safety”.

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