France has opened an investigation into death threats against three Israeli athletes as well as possible anti-Semitic hate crimes during a football match, the Paris prosecutor's office said on Sunday.
The death threats were reported by Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin and the investigation will be led by the national anti-online hate body, the prosectuors' office said in a statement.
Israel last Thursday warned France about cyber harrassment of its athletes and leaks of personal data that it blamed on Iran-backed groups.
Details of Israeli athletes' were leaked on social media including blood test results and login credentials.
Prosecutors said they were also probing possible anti-Semitic hate crimes during an Israel-Paraguay football match Saturday in Paris which featured chants and banners about the Gaza war.
The match at the Paris Saint Germain stadium saw fans "dressed in black, masked and carrying Palestinian flags unfurl a banner saying 'Genocide Olympics'" and one of them "made gestures of an anti-Semitic nature", a separate statement said.
The Paris Olympics organisers lodged a complaint with police, the prosecutors' statement added, confirming a story by the Parisien newspaper.
An AFP reporter at the stadium said about 50 spectators in the crowd sang chants in French against Israel and about the Gaza war. The chants, in French, included "Israel Killer" and "Israel is killing Palestine's children".
The Israeli anthem was booed by part of the crowd. Some Israeli fans in the stadium chanted back "Free the hostages".
The fans could be charged with aggravated incitement to racial hatred, the statement said.
French Jews consider leaving
The Israeli press indicates that the country's intelligence services are also involved in providing security during the Olympic Games in Paris.
According to the Jerusalem Post, operations are "mainly focused on Olympic delegation members (athletes and staff) but the Shin Bet (Israel's internal security service) is "also taking into account the thousands of Israeli spectators who will be arriving in Paris.
An opinion piece in the Israel daily Jerusalem Post on Monday entitled "is now not the time for Jews living in France to head to Israel?"
"The number of anti-Semitic incidents across France has quadrupled and the situation has been steadily deteriorating for two decades," wrote David Ben-Basat, CEO of Radios 100 FM and vice president of the Ambassadors Club of Israel. "The atmosphere towards the Jews is sometimes 'unbearable.'"
According to the article, this "surge" in anti-Semitism resulted in some 3,714 French Jews deciding to make the "Aliyah" (lit. "ascent,") or migrate to Israel.
Additionally, data presented to the Aliyah Group indicated that 38 percent of French Jews, approximately 200,000 people, were considering immigrating from France, according to the Jerusalem Post.
(with newswires)
