Eight Palestinian Olympic athletes compete in Paris under the shadow of the war in Gaza

The Palestinian Territories will be officially represented at the Olympic Games this summer for the eighth time, starting with the 1996 Games in Atlanta. The Palestinian delegation will include eight athletes in Paris, an increase from the five who competed at the Tokyo Games three years ago.

After nine months of war in Gaza, triggered by the unprecedented attack on Israel by Hamas commandos on October 7, their presence in Paris is already a small miracle. “Representing Palestine” at the Paris Games “is already a victory,” Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Varsen Aghabekian said at a press conference on July 14 at the French Institute in Ramallah.

“The departure of our athletes from the 2024 Olympics comes at a very dark moment in our history,” she added. “You are not only athletes, but also … symbols of Palestinian resistance,” she said.

“Palestinian sport has been hit hard by the war,” Nicolas Kassianides, the French consul general in Jerusalem, said at the event in Ramallah, adding that Paris is supporting Palestinian sport with €1 million in 2024.

A badly affected sports world

Sports infrastructure has been largely destroyed in Gaza, while there are many obstacles to participating in sports activities in the occupied West Bank. According to Jibril Rajoub, president of the Palestinian Olympic Committee, 400 athletes, volunteers and sportspeople have been injured or killed in Gaza since the enclave was besieged by Israel after October 7.

French daily Le Monde reported that “on November 14, 2023, two players from the national volleyball team, Ibrahim Qusaya and Hassan Zuaiter, were killed in a bombing at the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. On December 18, 2023, Bilal Abu Samaan, coach of the national athletics team, was killed in an airstrike. In January 2024, Hani al-Masdar, coach of the Palestinian Olympic football team, was killed by a missile fired from an Israeli plane.”

The athletes should use the media attention the Games provide as a “platform” to raise public awareness of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, Rajoub said. “That’s why we have to participate.”

However, Palestinian athletes are expected to adhere to the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) neutrality rules. According to Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter, “no form of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in Olympic venues, venues or other areas.”

Only one athlete qualified directly

The road to Paris was not easy for the Palestinian participants. Only one of the eight Palestinian athletes who went to the Games this year qualified according to the official criteria, the other seven had received special invitations from the IOC.

Taekwondo athlete Omar Ismail qualified for the Olympic Games directly during the Asian Qualification Tournament in Tai’an, China. It is the first time that a Palestinian has qualified in a combat sport without first having to go through a ‘wild card’ playoff procedure.

“I’ve been dreaming of this moment since I was a little boy. I was very happy to introduce myself in Paris with the best athletes in the world. Very happy to show my flag on the podium,” Ismail told RMC Sport in April.

“I represent the Palestinians. I hope that when young people see me, they will tell themselves that they can make their dreams come true, that they can work on themselves, that they can be like me or even better than me,” said Ismaïl, currently ranked 61st in the world in the under-58kg category. Ismaïl, who trains in Dubai, confided that he “prefers to talk about his sport” rather than the geopolitical situation.

Two 800-meter specialists, Layla al-Masri and Mohammed Dwedar, will compete on the track in Paris. The latter already competed at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest last year, where he finished ninth in his heat.

Dwedar, from Jericho in the West Bank, said that just being in Paris was the most important thing. “My presence here is already a success. I represented Palestine in a major championship,” he told the monthly The Courier of the Atlas.

Participating for an entire nation

Two Palestinian swimmers are competing in the Paris event: Valerie Tarazi in the 200-meter individual medley and Yazan al Bawwab in the 100-meter backstroke. They have also been invited to the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.

Al Bawwab, 24, was born in Saudi Arabia, grew up in Dubai and has family in the West Bank. He hopes to show the world that Palestinians deserve “the same rights” as everyone else, he told NBC. For him, participating in the Games is much more than just sport, it is “a tool to prove to the world that we are human beings too.”

Her compatriot Tarazi, who also has American citizenship, wants to use her presence in Paris to speak on behalf of the people in Gaza, where many of her relatives live. “We are not here to fight just for ourselves or to represent ourselves personally,” she told NBC. “It’s about much more than that.”

While Tarazi focuses on the Olympics, she regrets not being able to do more for her people. “I am one of the happiest Palestinians because I am not here, but at the same time I am unhappy because I cannot be here. It is too dangerous,” she says. “It weighs on us every day.”

Difficult preparation for the athletes

In boxing, the Palestinian delegation is represented by 20-year-old Waseem Abu Sal, the first Palestinian boxer to compete in the Olympic Games.

After receiving an invitation to compete, he imagined taking home the first-ever Palestinian medal. “It’s been my dream since I was 10,” he told AFP at his gym in Ramallah, in the West Bank. “Every day I woke up wondering how I was going to get to the Olympics.”

Abu Sal will compete in the lightweight category (under 63 kg), with his first Olympic competition set for July 28. His training is being conducted remotely with his Cairo-based coach Ahmed Harara, who is overseeing his workouts from Egypt due to Israeli restrictions that prevent him from returning to the West Bank. “I only see him when I travel” for international tournaments, Abu Sal said. “He defines my training program every day and I train every morning.”

Fares Badawi will represent the Palestinian territories in Paris in the under 81 kg weight class in judo. The 27-year-old has already participated in world championships and major tournaments such as the Grand Slam in Paris. Finally, 49-year-old Jorge Antonio Salhe has been invited to compete on behalf of Palestine in clay pigeon shooting.

The Palestinians have been recognized as members of the IOC since 1995 and are looking to take home their first Olympic medal.

For Nader Jayousi, technical director of the Palestinian Olympic Committee, the most important thing is not just to participate. The delegation hopes to finally put an athlete on the podium. “We don’t need people to feel sorry for us,” he told NBC. “Above all, we need people to recognize what we can achieve as a nation.”

This piece is a translation of the original in French.