'Arrive in France, we'll kill you' - Israeli athletes receive numerous death threats ahead of olympic games

Israeli athletes participating in the Olympics, to begin in Paris, France on Friday, received anonymous email threats regarding a repeat of the terrorist attack against Israeli athletes that took place at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

“Arrive in France, we'll kill you” and “Prepare for the Intifada” were some of the threats sent to 15 Israeli Olympic athletes and their teams last Thursday and Friday. These were reportedly just some of the many death threats, hate messages and other vitriol spewed online that Israeli Olympians have been receiving over the last few days.

According to local media, Israeli athletes received both online hate messages written in poor Hebrew and calls from foreign numbers.

During the Munich 1972 Olympics, Fatah’s Black September terror organization brutally tortured and murdered 11 Israeli athletes. At the time, the Palestinian Fatah party was led by PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas, who is the current leader of Fatah.

Abbas was Arafat's right-hand man and has since refused to apologize for the 1972 terror attack, calling it a “heroic operation.”

According to Israeli Olympic Committee Chairwoman Yael Arad, the Olympic team athletes were prepared for the threats and hate messages.

“It was clear to us that such a troll would come. We prepared for it. We instructed the athletes on how to act when it comes and we had many conversations and meetings on the subject,” she said, according to Walla News.

The Israeli Olympic team includes 88 athletes. They landed in Paris under a large security presence that included armed agents from Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency). The Telegraph reported that it has become the largest-ever security operation for Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games.

Israel’s Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar told The Telegraph that the security preparations began one year ago. All athletes have received security details from Shin Bet, he said.

“We know there are threats [against the team] but we don’t want to talk about it,” Zohar said, adding that the team’s security budget had been doubled because of the Israel-Hamas war.

“We try our best to make sure the athletes feel free but also safe and not afraid. We don’t want them to notice the security guards too much.”

Shin Bet agents are reportedly “equipped with weapons and technologies” and will be assisted by “local security and police forces,” former Shin Bet officer, Lior Akerman, told The Telegraph.

“Of course, it is not possible to go into detail about the security methods, but the combination of Israeli experience and knowledge, together with the cooperation with local security forces, provides an excellent and complete answer to the security of the delegation,” he said.

Former Shin Bet chief, Yaakov Peri, admitted there are multiple threats at the Olympics, but said the Iranian regime is behind them all.

“It can be Hamas or other terrorists, but Iran is behind almost everything. And France is of particular concern due to the level of antisemitism there,” Peri said.

On Friday, French police officers arrested a man who tried to kill a taxi driver with a knife while expressing his support for Hamas.

Israel has prevented many terrorist attacks by Iran and other groups abroad in recent months, warning in March that the risk of terrorism for Israelis abroad was especially high, particularly at the Eurovision Song Competition earlier this year.

Zohar stressed that the high risk is a threat to everyone, not only Jews and Israelis.

“They hate the free world and everyone who believes in democracy. They hate Christians, they hate Jews and anyone who doesn’t share their beliefs,” he warned.