LONDON: The Palestine Olympic Committee has urged Olympics authorities to ban Israeli athletes from taking part in the upcoming Paris Games.
According to a report in The Telegraph, POC officials on Friday presented evidence to the IOC allegedly showing Israeli Olympians visiting Israel Defense Forces soldiers and one, a judo athlete, even signing a missile.
Nader Jayousi, deputy secretary-general of the POC, said lsrael was solely responsible “for the human rights violations happening in Gaza, and the killings and murders of every single person.”
Jayousi added that if found to have signed missiles being fired at Palestinian civilians in Gaza, athletes will not have behaved in the “Olympic spirit.”
The Israel Judo Association issued a statement saying its athlete did not sign a missile himself.
Calls to ban Israeli athletes from the Paris Games have increased since the IDF retaliation in Gaza for an attack by Hamas militants on Oct. 7 in which around 1,200 people were killed.
Since October, Israeli forces have killed more than 38,900 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the territory’s Health Ministry.
In February, French lawmakers asked the IOC to sanction Israeli athletes, while a second online petition to the same effect garnered over 640,000 signatures.
Protesters have demonstrated outside the IOC headquarters in Switzerland, and Palestinian officials have also called for the Israeli FA to be banned from FIFA.
It is unlikely that the IOC will ban Israeli athletes from the Games, which get underway next week, the Telegraph reported.
