PARIS — The Opening Ceremonies aren’t until Friday night, but already the 2024 Summer Olympics are mired in politics, with frictions over Israel’s war in Gaza and Russia’s war in Ukraine on full display.

       Amid protests and heightened security, the Israeli soccer team took the field Wednesday against Mali, a country that doesn’t recognize Israel, playing to a draw in one of the first events of what is shaping up to be an extremely tense Summer Olympics.

       French police appeared nervous in the lead-up to the match. A bomb scare prompted security to temporarily cordon off areas near the Parc des Princes stadium. At the airport, Israeli President Isaac Herzog was prevented from leaving his plane for 40 minutes as a result of another false alarm — an airport staffer without the requisite safety vest.

       Some match spectators waved Palestinian flags, and some sections booed the Israelis. Sporadic chants of “free Palestine” drew attention from security. Outside the venue came choruses of “free the hostages.”

       The Paris Olympics “are the most geopolitically charged Olympics that we have seen in decades,” said political scientist Jules Boykoff, a former professional soccer player.

       “The risk,” said Patrick Clastres, a cultural historian at the University of Lausanne, “is that we are entering a historical phase” that could result in the “Olympic planet breaking up.”

       French President Emmanuel Macron has promoted a “political truce” — around the world and within France — for the duration of the Games. But it is not clear how many countries or individuals are heeding the call.

       One left-wing French lawmaker, Thomas Portes, generated controversy by telling a pro-Palestinian rally Saturday that the Israeli delegation is “not welcome” in Paris. He echoed activists in demanding “an end to double standards” and said the Israeli flag and anthem should be banned during the Games, “as is done for Russia.”

       Russian and Belarusian teams have been excluded from these Olympics. Fifteen Russians and 16 Belarusians have been permitted to compete as neutrals — as long as they don’t endorse Russia’s war on Ukraine.

       Macron has said the actions by Russia and Israel are “profoundly different” because “Israel responded to a terrorist attack” by Hamas against Israeli civilians. Though France has condemned some of Israel’s actions in Gaza since that Oct. 7 attack, Macron said, “this is not a war of aggression.”

       “Israeli athletes are welcome in our country,” he said. “They must be able to compete under their colors because that is what the Olympic movement has decided. France’s responsibility is to welcome them in complete safety.”

       According to Israeli media, at least 15 of the 88 Israeli team members have received emails warning of a repeat of 1972 attacks, when 11 Israeli athletes and coaches at the Munich Games were killed by members of a Palestinian militant group.

       Since the Munich Games, the Israeli Olympic team has traveled with its own security detail — a force that has been enhanced this year in Paris. But the event won’t be like the Eurovision Song Contest in Sweden in May, when contestant Eden Golan, 20, was secluded in a hotel guarded by police when not rehearsing or performing. Israeli athletes are staying in the Olympic Village, eating with other athletes and taking part in the Opening Ceremonies, said an official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive plans.

       “It’s not one singer in a contest,” the official said. “It’s a huge contingent of athletes.”

       France deployed 1,000 police officers at Wednesday’s soccer match, and there will be a heavy security presence throughout the Games. The concerns go well beyond the safety of the Israeli team. French officials have been trying to anticipate and preempt activities ranging from drone attacks to cyberwarfare.

       On Tuesday, French police indicted a Russian national over a suspected plot to cause “destabilization” during the Games, prosecutors said.

       Vincent Strubel, head of France’s cybersecurity agency, said the Russian invasion of Ukraine sensitized French authorities to the growing risk of “disruption, sabotage and destruction of critical infrastructure from cyberattacks.” His agency worked with 500 high-risk entities involved in the Olympics to strengthen their protection mechanisms.

       According to Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, France has denied a “large number” of Russians who applied for media accreditation for the Games out of concern they might have sought it for “intelligence gathering” or “to gain access to computer networks in order to carry out a cyberattack.”

       Russia’s human rights commissioner, Tatyana Moskalkova, called the “threats of espionage and cyberattacks cited by the French authorities” a “completely absurd, unsubstantiated claim.”

       The French authorities who are overseeing security screening and other aspects of Olympic preparations also worked before France’s legislative elections this summer. That vote remains unresolved, with no bloc having a clear path to form a government. As a result, Macron said Tuesday, he is keeping his government in place in a caretaker role at least through the end of the Games.

       “Until mid-August, we are not in a position to change things since it would create disorder,” he told the France 2 television network. (That also amounted to a rejection, for now, of a prime-ministerial candidate put forward an hour earlier by the left-wing coalition that won the most seats in the National Assembly.)

       The French government, the Paris 2024 organizers and the International Olympic Committee are all keen to avoid the sort of protests that could mar the success of the Games. Activists have objected to France’s ban on its athletes wearing hijabs and the clearing of tent camps where homeless migrants had been living. But opinions about Israel’s war in Gaza are especially heated.

       Athletes could add their voices to the protests. “We’re living in a moment of athlete empowerment on a lot of fronts, and with that comes confidence to speak out,” Boykoff said.

       Athletes are banned from expressing their political views during competitions and official ceremonies, but some could test the boundaries by, for example, refusing handshakes.

       “The organizing committee and the IOC are preparing for expressions of political views during the next weeks,” said Pim Verschuuren, a research fellow at Rennes 2 University. “Their reaction to the protests will be adapted to the nature of the protest, and the size.”

       This is the first Games since the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic to include fans in the stands. They are allowed to bring only flags of competing countries or territories to the competitions. Signs with political messages are banned.

       Pro-Palestinian protesters gathered in Paris on Tuesday night to pressure the IOC to exclude Israel from the Games.

       “The whole thing is so bloody hypocritical,” protester Susanne Shields said Tuesday. “Obviously, they’re doing absolutely nothing.”

       The IOC imposed sanctions on Russia in 2022 over its invasion of Ukraine, which coincided with the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. The IOC said Russia had violated the Olympic Truce, a tradition from ancient Greece, revived in recent decades, in which countries are asked to set aside conflict for seven days before the Olympic Games until seven days after the Paralympic Games.

       Russia’s Olympic Committee was then fully suspended last year after it incorporated regional sports associations in occupied parts of Ukraine.

       The Palestinian Olympic Committee on Monday accused Israel of violating the Olympic Truce by continuing to bomb Gaza.

       Others have pointed to the example of South Africa, which was barred from the 1964 Tokyo Games and expelled from the IOC in 1970 for apartheid, its policy of racial segregation.

       Clastres said the chance of Israel being excluded during these Games is low. “The international political and legal situation is too complex, and the IOC does not want to take risks with this,” he said.

       At a news briefing Tuesday, IOC chief Thomas Bach made no mention of possible sanctions on Israel. “The Olympic Games are a competition not between countries; they are competitions between athletes,” he said.

       Eight athletes will represent Palestinians at the Paris Games — in taekwondo, boxing, judo, shooting, swimming and running. Most are members of the Palestinian diaspora, based outside the Palestinian territories.

       Palestinian American swimmer Valerie Tarazi, who attended Auburn University and lives in Atlanta, said she got to know beach volleyball players from Gaza during the Asian Games in China just days before the Hamas-led attack in Israel. A week later, she said, she learned that one of those players had been killed in an Israeli bombing.

       “It seems like every week we hear about other athletes or friends or family dying,” she said.

       “Having to hear about that and then go to train isn’t the most fun thing to do,” Tarazi said, “but it is also the reason that I do come every single day. My way of fighting for my country is through sport, peacefully.”

       Steve Hendrix in Jerusalem and Souad Mekhennet, Les Carpenter and Candace Buckner in Paris contributed to this report.