Five of the six athletes received places in the International Olympic Committee’s universal quota, which is generally distributed among poorer nations with precarious sports programs.
Follow the live blog article on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict here
Palestine, which is experiencing one of the most dramatic moments in its history, will be represented at the Olympic Games by six athletes, one of whom is a woman, the country’s Olympic committee announced on Monday.
The Middle Eastern nation will be represented in swimming, judo, boxing, shooting and taekwondowith the possibility of having an element in athletics.
Wrestler Omar Ismail was the only one who qualified directly for the Olympic Games and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has referred to July 8, the deadline for confirming those present, for any type of comment.
According to the technical director of the Palestinian Olympic Committee, Nader Jayousi, The remaining team received places from the IOC’s universal quotagenerally distributed among the poorest nations, with precarious sports programs.
Jorge Antonio Salhe will represent the country in shooting, Yazan al Bawwab, who was already in Tokyo2020, and Valerie Tarazi in swimming, Fares Badawi in judo and Wasim Abusal in boxing.
At Tokyo 2020, Palestine was represented by five competitors: athletics, swimming, weightlifting and judo.
According to Palestinian authorities, around 300 athletes, referees, coaches and other people working in sport have been killed since the beginning of Israel’s aggression, in war with the political and military organization Hamas.
Among these victims It was long-distance runner Majed Abu Maraheel, the first Palestinian to compete in the Olympicsin Atlanta in 1996, who died of kidney failure after being unable to receive treatment in Gaza or be evacuated to Egypt.
The widespread destruction of Gaza includes many sports infrastructures, with only a few athletes able to leave to continue training, and in the West Bank the situation is less dramatic.
In the history of the Olympic Games, only 26 athletes have represented Palestine at the world’s biggest sporting event. Israel’s most violent incursion into Gaza came after Hamas’s attack on Israeli soil, which left more than 1,100 people dead and about 200 hostages.
Following this attack, on 7 October, Israel launched a large-scale offensive in the Gaza Strip, which has already caused nearly 38,000 deaths, more than 86,000 wounded and 10,000 missing, most of them civilians, as well as a humanitarian disaster, destabilising the entire region.
The conflict has also led to the displacement of nearly two million people, plunging the overcrowded and impoverished Palestinian enclave into a severe humanitarian crisis, with more than 1.1 million people in a “catastrophic hunger situation” that is claiming victims – “the highest number ever recorded” by the UN in studies on food security in the world.
Source: Observadora
