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PARIS: Six athletes, including one woman, have been selected to represent Palestine at the Paris Olympics, a Palestinian Olympic Committee official told The Associated Press on Monday.

The athletes will compete in boxing, judo, swimming, shooting and taekwondo, said Nader Jayousi, technical director of the Palestinian Olympic Committee.

Jayousi said there is a small chance that a seventh athlete could be added in track and field.

Palestine sent five athletes to the Tokyo Games in swimming, athletics, weightlifting and judo. If there are no injuries, the POC will send more athletes to Paris, despite the war between Israel and Hamas that has brought the sports movement to a brutal standstill since October last year.

The IOC declined to comment on the Palestinian selection when contacted by the Associated Press. The deadline for athletes to register in Paris is July 8. The Olympic Games begin on July 24.

Only one Palestinian athlete, taekwondo fighter Omar Ismail, has qualified directly for Paris.

Jayousi said the others will compete in France under a wildcard system provided as part of the universality quota places. Backed by the International Olympic Committee, it allows athletes representing poorer countries with less established sporting programs to compete even if they did not meet the sporting criteria.

In addition to Ismail, Jorge Antonio Salhe will compete in shooting, Yazan Al Bawwab and Valerie Tarazi in swimming, Fares Badawi in judo and Wasim Abusal in boxing. Al Bawwab competed in Tokyo.

About 300 athletes, referees, coaches and others working in sports have died since the war began, according to Palestinian officials. Among them was long-distance runner Majed Abu Maraheel, the first Palestinian to compete in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. He died of kidney failure after he could not be treated in Gaza and evacuated to Egypt.

Much of the Palestinian sports infrastructure, clubs and institutions have been destroyed and athletes from Gaza have been forced to leave to train.

Only 26 athletes have represented Palestine at the Olympic Games.