Around 1,000 French police officers will form an “anti-terror perimeter” around Israel’s opening football match against Mali at the Olympic Games in Paris after the game was designated as high risk.

The heavy police presence has been deemed necessary given the expectation of protests outside the Parc des Princes and in the stadium’s stands when the two teams meet on Wednesday evening.

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France’s interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said the game had been identified as being high risk along with the tie between Ukraine and Iraq, which is being staged earlier in the south-eastern city of Lyon.

The two evening games pose the first major security test of the Games at a time of conflict in Ukraine and the middle east.

In a sign of the security jitters, some spectators trying to attend an early afternoon game at the Parc des Princes between Uzbekistan and Spain were unable to get to their seats for kick off after a suspicious bag forced police to close off a nearby area.

Darmanin said: “All the competitions have a security plan, but it’s true that these two matches, and particularly the match at the Parc des Princes, will have security, an anti-terror perimeter. Tonight at the Parc des Princes there will be a thousand police officers who will ensure that we are there for the sport.”

A number of Israeli athletes have received death threats ahead of the Paris Games while pro-Palestine groups intend to demonstrate against Israel’s participation at the first appearance of its men’s football team.

At their training headquarters in Croissy, some 12 miles west of Paris, the Israeli players on Tuesday were asked by their officials to avoid answering political questions from reporters. Media minders yelled “only football” when journalists attempted to ask questions that strayed beyond matters on the pitch.

Asked about security, three of the players repeated that they were comfortable, ready and pleased to be in Paris. “We came here to win and achieve things with this team and are very excited,” Omri Gandelman, a midfielder who plays for the Belgian club Ghent, said. “We have a job to do.”

Guy Luzon, the team coach, who oversaw the squad’s first Olympic qualification since 1976, said he had no concerns over the atmosphere in the stadium. “It will be a great atmosphere and I’m sure we will have a lot of supporters,” he said. “We don’t care what happens around us.”

A spokesman for Israel’s Olympic team said: “The committee is focusing on sports. Any manifestation that there will be or not is completely irrelevant. The position is here to play, leaving politics aside.”

Israeli athletes at the Games, which starts officially on Friday with the opening ceremony, have been given round-the-clock personal security by elite French police inside the Olympic Village and when they leave their compound in northern Paris.

A French police source told AFP that the the security forces were “expecting actions and disturbances around the stadium” and it was possible that “people shout insults from the stands” after the 8pm (local time) kick-off.

Susanne Shields, from the French activist group, Europalestine, told the Guardian on Tuesday that she was aware of plans to protest against the “genocide” in Gaza at the Parc des Princes.

Mali, a mainly Muslim state, broke off ties with Israel in 1973 after the Yom Kippur war and its government, which took power through a coup in 2021, has expressed support to the Palestinians, condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza.