Israel at the 2024 Summer Olympics

Pre-Games and opening-ceremony reports counted 88 representatives, making this Israel’s second-largest Olympic delegation after Tokyo’s 90.[1][7] A later Jewish Virtual Library summary listed 87 athletes—54 men and 33 women—competing in 16 sports and 66 events.[2] Israeli officials had hoped for four or five medals, a target the final seven exceeded.[8]

Several entrants arrived with notable qualifications or prior achievements.[5][2] The men’s soccer team had qualified for its first Olympics since 1976 by reaching the semifinals of the 2023 UEFA European Under-21 Championship.[2] In rhythmic gymnastics, Israel’s group had won its first world-championship gold in 2023, following Olympic final appearances in 2008, 2016 and 2020.[5] Artem Dolgopyat entered as the reigning Olympic champion in men’s floor exercise, having won gold at Tokyo.[4]

The delegation included Israel’s largest Olympic swimming and judo contingents to date: 18 swimmers and 12 judokas.[9] Israel qualified an entrant in every women’s judo weight class, a distinction shared at Paris only by Japan and Italy.[9] These were also sports in which the delegation registered significant results, including three judo medals and a national record in the men’s 4×200-metre freestyle relay.[4][2]

Preparations unfolded during Israel’s war with Hamas and amid concern about threats to the athletes and the reception they might encounter in France.[6] Olympic Committee president Yael Arad described participation itself as a victory and spoke of the delegation’s national mission.[10] The reported security budget rose substantially from the amount allocated for Rio and Tokyo, while French officials promised round-the-clock protection for Israeli athletes.[11][6]

The security context also carried the memory of the 1972 Munich Olympics, when Palestinian terrorists kidnapped and murdered 11 members of Israel’s delegation.[12] Threats directed at athletes before and during the Paris Games included promises to “repeat Munich 1972,” explicitly invoking that earlier attack.[12] The Israeli team later held a memorial ceremony for the Munich victims in secret.[12]

France announced 24-hour protection for Israeli athletes following threats against members of the delegation.[6] President Emmanuel Macron stated that “Israeli athletes are welcome in our country” and affirmed France’s responsibility to provide security for them.[6] Israel also sent its largest-ever delegation of Shin Bet agents to protect the athletes in Paris.[6]

The reported security budget rose from 4.3 million shekels for Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 to more than 7 million shekels for Paris.[11] The Israel Security Agency’s Protective Security Department, Unit 730, was responsible for protecting the delegation, while the Mossad was involved in intelligence gathering on possible threats.[11][2] The athletes’ Olympic Village accommodation was heavily secured, and members of the delegation were advised to maintain a low profile and avoid unnecessary risks.[2] French authorities prepared for a range of security scenarios.[2]

On July 18 and 19, 15 Israeli athletes and their teams received identical Hebrew-language emails threatening to kill them if they traveled to France.[13] Multiple athletes also received invitations to their own funerals.[6] One message addressed to swimmer Meiron Amir Cheruti read: “You are welcome to attend the funeral of Meiron Amir Cheruti, born on October 19, 1997, died on July 27, 2024.”[14]

Peter Paltchik was among the athletes who received threatening emails before the Games.[15] Security officials assessed messages covered in the pre-Games reporting as having been sent by a bot rather than an organized group.[15] The Israeli Olympic Committee said that security personnel were closely accompanying the delegation and that the threats had been referred to the relevant authorities.[15]

On July 25, Israel’s National Cyber Directorate announced that Iran was behind an online intimidation campaign targeting the athletes.[14] The campaign involved impersonating a French far-right student organization, distributing athletes’ personal information and sending threatening messages.[14] Personal data belonging to Israeli athletes were also leaked online amid warnings of Iranian threats.[2]

Judoka Peter Paltchik and swimmer Andi Murez carried Israel’s flag at the opening ceremony, as the delegation arrived by boat on the Seine.[7] Opening-day coverage counted 88 Israeli representatives and described the contingent as one of the country’s strongest Olympic delegations to that point.[7] The ceremony took place on July 26, although Israel’s soccer campaign had already begun with a match against Mali on July 24.[6][13]

Israel ultimately won medals in four sports: sailing, judo, artistic gymnastics and rhythmic gymnastics.[3] Windsurfing supplied the delegation’s only gold, together with one silver; judo supplied two silver medals and a bronze; and the two gymnastics disciplines each supplied a silver.[3] The seven-medal result exceeded both the pre-Games expectation of four or five medals and the previous national record of four.[8][3]

The delegation also achieved a record three medals in a single day during the Games.[12] Beyond the medal events, Israeli competitors established national records in swimming and produced the country’s best Olympic finishes in the women’s marathon and artistic swimming duet.[9] The soccer team’s long-awaited Olympic return, by contrast, ended in the group stage after a draw and two defeats.[16]

Tom Reuveny won the men’s iQFOiL windsurfing final, securing Israel’s first and only gold medal of the Paris Games.[4][3] Aged 24, he had not previously won a senior world or European championship medal.[4] His Olympic victory made him Israel’s fourth Olympic champion, exactly 20 years after his coach, Gal Fridman, became the country’s first Olympic gold medalist at Athens in 2004.[4][17]

Reuveny’s gold therefore extended an Olympic sailing record already associated with his coach’s achievement.[17] Fridman’s first gold in Athens and Reuveny’s fourth Israeli gold in Paris were separated by two decades, with Fridman participating in the later success as coach rather than competitor.[17][4] Reuveny’s result was the sole Israeli victory at Paris to contribute a gold medal to the official medal-table ranking.[3][18]

Sharon Kantor, then 21 and already a world champion, won silver in the women’s iQFOiL event.[4] She finished second in the final behind Italy’s Marta Maggetti.[4] Kantor became the first Israeli woman to win an Olympic sailing medal and the fourth Israeli sailing medalist; Reuveny’s later gold raised Israel’s historical Olympic sailing medal total to five.[4]

The two windsurfing medals accounted for both a new Israeli women’s sailing milestone and the delegation’s only Olympic title at Paris.[4][3] Together, Reuveny and Kantor contributed one gold and one of the five silver medals in Israel’s final seven-medal tally.[3]

Inbar Lanir and Raz Hershko won silver medals, while Peter Paltchik won bronze, giving Israeli judo its largest medal haul at a single Olympics.[4] Lanir and Hershko were the first Israeli judokas since Yael Arad in 1992 to reach Olympic finals and win silver medals.[4] The three Paris medals brought judo’s contribution to nine of Israel’s 20 historical Olympic medals.[9]

Lanir competed in the women’s under-78-kilogram division.[19] She defeated Germany’s Anna-Maria Wagner in the semifinal before losing the final to Italy’s Alice Bellandi.[19] Her silver was Israel’s 15th Olympic medal overall and its eighth in judo at that point in the competition.[19] It was one of two Israeli medals won in the judo competition alongside Paltchik’s bronze in the men’s under-100-kilogram event.[19]

Paltchik reached the bronze-medal contest through the repechage after a quarterfinal defeat.[19] He beat the Netherlands’ Michael Korrel in the repechage and then defeated Switzerland’s Daniel Eich to secure bronze.[19] His medal followed his role as one of Israel’s opening-ceremony flag-bearers.[19][7]

Hershko competed in the women’s over-78-kilogram division.[2] She defeated Turkey’s Kayra Ozdemir in just 15 seconds in the semifinal, before losing the final to Brazil’s Beatriz Souza.[2] Her silver completed Israel’s three-medal judo result: two finalists in the women’s events and a bronze medalist in the men’s competition.[2][4]

Israel also competed in the mixed team event, defeating Mongolia 4–3 in a tie decided by a seventh bout.[4] The team then lost 4–0 to France in the round of 16; France went on to win the event.[4] Although the mixed team did not add another medal, the individual results made judo Israel’s largest medal-producing sport at Paris, supplying three of the delegation’s seven medals.[4][3]

Artem Dolgopyat won silver in the men’s floor exercise with a score of 14.966, behind the Philippines’ Carlos Edriel Yulo, who scored 15.000.[17] Dolgopyat reached the podium after a poor qualifying performance, having entered Paris as the reigning champion from Tokyo.[4] His silver followed the gold he had won in the same event at the previous Olympics.[17]

The result made Dolgopyat the first Israeli to win medals at consecutive Olympic Games at the time of the Paris reporting.[17] He also became the second Israeli, after Gal Fridman, to win two Olympic medals in an individual event.[4] The end-of-Games account identified him as Israel’s most decorated Olympian following the floor final.[9]

Israel’s rhythmic gymnastics group won silver in the all-around, the country’s first Olympic medal in the group competition.[5] The team consisted of captain Romi Paritzki, Ofir Shaham, Diana Svertsov, Adar Friedmann and Shani Bakanov.[5] Their combined score of 68.850 placed them behind China, which scored 69.800, and ahead of bronze medalist Italy.[5]

The group’s silver followed earlier Israeli Olympic final appearances in 2008, 2016 and 2020 and the team’s first world-championship gold in 2023.[5] In Paris, the group converted that sequence of international achievements into an Olympic medal.[5] Its silver was Israel’s seventh medal of the Games and the country’s 20th Olympic medal overall.[20]

Together, Dolgopyat and the rhythmic gymnastics group supplied two of Israel’s five silver medals.[3] Their results represented different Olympic milestones: a second individual medal for the defending floor champion and a first Olympic podium for the rhythmic gymnastics group.[17][5]

Israel’s men’s soccer team returned to the Olympics for the first time since 1976, having qualified through the 2023 European Under-21 Championship.[2] Its Paris campaign began with a 1–1 draw against Mali, followed by a 2–4 defeat to Paraguay.[16] A 0–1 loss to Japan, decided in stoppage time, left Israel outside the knockout stage.[16]

The soccer fixtures also generated security incidents.[13] A bomb scare near the venue for the July 24 match against Mali led French police to cordon off nearby areas.[13] At the July 27 match against Paraguay, spectators displayed a “Genocide Olympics” banner, chanted “Heil Hitler” and performed Nazi salutes; stadium stewards removed anti-Israel demonstrators.[13] Paris 2024 organizers condemned the incidents and lodged a complaint, while prosecutors investigated suspected aggravated incitement to racial hatred and threats against Israeli Olympians.[2]

In swimming, the men’s 4×200-metre freestyle relay set a national record of 7:08.43.[2] Ron Polonsky also established a national record in the men’s 100-metre breaststroke, among the results produced by Israel’s record 18-member swimming delegation.[9]

Lonah Chemtai Salpeter finished ninth in the women’s marathon, then Israel’s best Olympic marathon finish.[9] In artistic swimming, Shelly Bobritsky and Ariel Nassee placed 11th in the duet, the country’s best Olympic result in that event across six appearances.[9] These performances gave the delegation national bests outside the four medal-winning sports.[9][3]

Mosaic highlighted Yuval Freilich as the first male Israeli fencer to qualify for the Olympics in épée, noting that he had previously won the European championship but lost in Paris to a lower-ranked opponent.[21]

Israel finished the Paris Games with seven medals: one gold, five silver and one bronze.[3] This surpassed the previous national record of four medals at Tokyo in 2021 and raised Israel’s all-time Olympic medal total from 13 before Paris to 20 afterward.[3] The final result also exceeded the four or five medals that Israeli officials had hoped to win before the Games.[8]

Israel placed 41st in the official medal table, which ranks countries primarily by gold medals.[18] Alternative calculations placed it 36th by total medals and 29th under a weighted system awarding three points for gold, two for silver and one for bronze.[18] These were different measures of the same medal result, rather than conflicting reports of its official position.[18]

Tom Reuveny and rhythmic gymnastics captain Romi Paritzki carried Israel’s flags at the closing ceremony.[20] They stood near Iranian flag-bearer Fatemeh Mojallal, with Ireland’s flag between them.[20] Their selection paired the delegation’s sole gold medalist with the captain of the group that had won its seventh and final medal.[3][20]

Post-Games coverage characterized anti-Israel demonstrations during competition as limited, describing occasional booing, protest signs and Palestinian flags alongside visible support for Israeli athletes.[3] The athletic outcome was nevertheless Israel’s strongest Olympic medal performance, with podium appearances across four sports and additional national milestones in swimming, the marathon and artistic swimming.[9][3]

Paris established a new Israeli single-Games medal record while adding first-time achievements within established medal-winning sports.[3][5] Kantor became the first Israeli woman to win an Olympic sailing medal, and the rhythmic gymnastics group reached an Olympic podium for the first time.[4][5] Reuveny’s victory added Israel’s fourth Olympic gold, with the country’s first champion, Gal Fridman, serving as his coach.[17]

Judo remained central to Israel’s Olympic record: its three medals in Paris were the sport’s largest Israeli haul at one Games, and nine of Israel’s 20 medals after Paris came from judo.[4][9] Lanir and Hershko’s appearances in finals also ended the interval since Yael Arad’s silver in 1992 for Israeli judokas reaching that stage and winning silver.[4] Dolgopyat, meanwhile, added a silver to his Tokyo gold and became Israel’s first medalist at consecutive Olympics.[17]

The delegation’s historical significance was not confined to medal counts.[9] Its largest-ever swimming and judo teams, national-record men’s freestyle relay, best Olympic marathon finish and best artistic swimming duet result accompanied the record podium total.[9][2] Those achievements occurred within an Olympic campaign that also included threats invoking the Munich massacre and a private commemoration of its victims.[12]

An FDD opinion article reported that Jibril Rajoub called for Israel to be banned from the Olympics, while the Jewish Virtual Library described Palestinian efforts to seek Israel’s suspension from FIFA and did not report the outcome of the pending decision.[22][2] FDD also reported that the International Olympic Committee prohibited Israeli athletes from wearing yellow ribbons supporting hostages held in Gaza, citing rules against political statements.[13] The same report said Palestinian flag-bearer Waseem Abu Sal wore a shirt depicting a warplane dropping missiles on children playing sports and that Palestinian Olympic officials said it had been approved.[13]

Algerian judoka Messaoud Redouane Dris forfeited against Tohar Butbul after arriving overweight; the International Judo Federation investigated, but intentional avoidance remained an allegation.[9][13] FDD reported that Moroccan and Tajik judokas also refused post-match handshakes with Israeli opponents.[13]

In commentary, the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs linked threats, a fabricated news story and attempted misuse of French digital displays to an Iranian cyber operation.[23] It cited a joint American-Israeli advisory attributing the activity to Emennet Pasargad, using Aria Sepehr Ayandehsazan as a cover, and described the purported sender “Regiment GUD” as fictitious.[23]