The Olympics opening ceremony in Tokyo has included for the first time an official commemoration of the 1972 massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich games.

Forty-nine years on, the Israeli delegation that was killed at the Munich Olympics was commemorated with a minute’s silence at the ceremony in Japan.

 The move was welcomed by relatives of the victims, some of whom were in the stadium, and Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

“I welcome this important and historic moment. May their memory be blessed,” Mr Bennett wrote on Twitter.

The families of the 11 killed had long asked the International Olympic Committee to hold a minute’s silence at a Games opening ceremony but had been turned down for almost half a century.