Israeli Minister of Sport Limor Livnat plans to stand for a minute's silence when International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge speaks at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games later Friday, dpa reported.
The minister will make the gesture to protest the IOC's refusal to hold a minute's silence at the opening ceremony to mark 40 years since the murder of 11 Israeli athletes and coaches by Palestinian gunmen at the 1972 Munich Olympics, Livnat's spokesman, Meir Bardugo, said.
Livnat, who is representing Israel at the London opening, will make her protest in the ministers' section of the Olympic stadium, where sports ministers of other competing nations will be, Bardugo said.
The families of the dead Israelis have mounted a campaign to get the IOC to hold an official moment of silence but the IOC said the opening ceremony was not an appropriate occasion.
But supporters of the call have pointed out that a moment of silence was held at the opening ceremony of the Vancouver winter games two years ago, for a Georgian luge competitor who died during a training accident, and the victims of the September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre were honoured at the opening of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
A minute's silence for the 11 murdered Israelis was held inside the Olympic village on Monday, and Rogge will attend a memorial at the Munich airport where most of the Israelis died.
"We have always commemorated and will continue to commemorate the memory of the killed athletes," he said.