Lebanese Olympians block Israeli athletes from bus

The row was sparked when Lebanese athletes blocked the Israeli team from joining them on the packed bus on Friday, despite the Israeli side maintaining that organisers had directed them towards the bus.

“The organising committee saw the blunt behaviour of the head of the Lebanese delegation and immediately arranged a different bus for us,” Gili Lusting, head of the Israeli delegation, said in a statement to The Associated Press.

“The behaviour of the head of the Lebanese delegation contradicts the Olympic Charter.”

Sailing coach Udi Gal said Lebanon chef de mission Salim Haj Nicola “physically blocked the entrance and wouldn’t let us on” after the driver opened the door.

“We wanted to stand up for ourselves but you can’t cause trouble,” Gal, a former Olympic sailor, told Israel’s local Channel 2 news channel.

But Lebanese Haj Nicola insisted that he had the right to prevent another team’s athletes from joining them on the transport which he said was reserved solely for his team.

“I asked the bus driver to close the door but the guide with the Israeli team prevented him from doing so,” Haj Nicola told Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar.

“I then stood at the door of the bus to prevent the Israel team from entering and some of them tried to go in and pick up a fight.”

Haj Nicola told the AP that it was “only a small problem.”

“This problem is finished,” he said by telephone. “We are here only for sports.”

In 2006, a deadly conflict between Israel and the Hizballah group in neighbouring Lebanon killed 1,200 Lebanese, including hundreds of civilians and mostly 160 Israeli soldiers.