In July 2025, a rumor began to circulate that a group of 50 Jewish children who were returning home from a summer camp had been removed from a plane in Spain for singing in Hebrew.
For example, Stand With Us, an organization dedicated to supporting Israel and fighting antisemitism, posted a video about the incident on Instagram, adding that Israeli Minister for Combating Antisemitism Amichai Chikli said the children had been targeted for "simply expressing their identity" (archived):
The post had gained 31,485 likes as of this writing. Stand With Us published an identical post on Facebook, which had amassed 1,800 comments as of this writing.
The video shows two police officers on a jet bridge, right at the entrance of a plane. One of them is holding a woman down on the ground, handcuffing her behind her back. The other one, whose face is off-camera, wears a bulletproof vest and speaks Spanish with a distinctive Spanish accent. "One moment," he says. "Take the children outside." An airport worker in shorts and a bright orange vest looks on. People are screaming in the background.
French, Spanish and Israeli media also relayed the story.
Through a combination of news releases, statements and interviews, Snopes was able to confirm the incident took place. We have therefore deemed the claim true. Yet as of this writing, the circumstances of the removal were still under investigation.
Airline said teens were too unruly to guarantee safety on the plane
In statements published on July 24, both low-cost Spanish airline Vueling (archived) and the organization in charge of the Jewish children (archived) confirmed that the onboard crew had called the Civil Guard, the national police force in charge of enforcing the law at airports in Spain, to remove the campers and their counselors.
The situation involved a French Jewish summer camp called Club Kineret. The campers were teens who were returning home from a two-week sojourn in Sant Carlès de la Ràpita, a small beach town a two-hour car ride away from the Valencia airport, where the incident occurred. The Club Kineret website indicated there were two age groups on that trip: one group of 13- to 15-year-old children (archived), and another of 15 to 17-year-old teenagers (archived). The return date on the website corresponded to the date of the incident.
On July 23, campers boarded Vueling flight VY8166, headed to Orly airport in Paris. From here, the versions differ.
In its statement, Vueling said that the teens had become too unruly to guarantee the safety of passengers:
The cabin crew was alerted that the group of teenagers was tampering with passenger safety equipment, posing a high risk to the aircraft, passengers and crew. These actions included attempting to release life jackets, tampering with overhead oxygen masks and removing high pressure oxygen cylinder that potentially pose a serious danger to the cabin. Furthermore, the group disrupted the mandatory safety demonstration and repeatedly disobeyed crew instructions.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Spain's Civil Guard told Snopes that when the police officers entered the plane after the onboard crew contacted them, they saw counselors "talk heatedly" to members of the crew, later demonstrating an "aggressive attitude" against police. In an email, the spokesperson added that the director had "pushed and lashed out" at one of the agents, which is why they tackled and handcuffed her. They added that they had "not been made aware of the religion of those they removed from the plane."
Given that, as we will see, some children wore symbols of Jewish identity, we replied asking how it was possible that the agents were not aware of the group's religion. We will update this report should we receive a response.
Further, a statement from the Spanish commercial pilots' guild sought to remind the public that "the captain is the highest authority on a flight, and that the safety of the plane and the people and cargo falls under his responsibility."
"In any circumstance that may compromise the security of the operation, the captain makes the opportune decisions based on his professional judgement and in accordance with the aeronautical norm and the procedures outlined in operational manuals of the airlines," the statement added.
Camp filed a formal complaint against the airline
However, Julie Jacob, the French lawyer for the Jewish summer camp Club Kineret, contradicted these assertions. In a July 24 statement in French posted by the club's Instagram account, she said she had obtained several written affidavits from passengers on the flight not related to the camp in which they testified that the 44 teens, led by the director and seven counselors, had been "sitting in their seats, respectful of the rules and of the staff."
"No incident, no threat and no inappropriate behavior had been reported," she said. She added that the group had been removed from the plane "with no valid explanation, on the order of the flight captain."
Jacob announced in the statement that Club Kineret was filing a formal complaint against the airline, citing antisemitism. Indeed, she said:
The only element the group shared was their religious visibility. Certain children wore a kippah [Jewish skullcap], others wore Jewish identity symbols (star of David). The use of a few Hebrew words was seemingly enough to trigger a measure of extreme severity — collective, humiliating and discriminatory.
No other circumstance can explain the treatment inflicted on this group of children.
A parent speaks out
A version of Jacob's account had begun to circulate within hours of the incident. For example, the night of July 23, while campers were still at the Valencia airport after being removed, Karine Lamy, parent of one of the campers, spoke to i24NEWS, the international Israeli news television channel. In the interview, Lamy said her son and the group had been left stranded at the airport.
She explained that after sitting down in the plane, one boy who was part of the group began to sing loudly in Hebrew. A crew member then approached the group, saying that if the boy continued to sing loudly, they would call the police. After this exchange, Lamy said, the kid stopped singing and the rest of the group remained quiet. With no further warning, the police arrived and told the director of the camp that she and all the children must deplane, according to the camper's mother.
Once on the jet bridge, police asked all children to pull out their telephones and place them on the ground to delete all the videos, if videos were filmed during the incident, Lamy told i24NEWS. The director of the camp then intervened, saying police had no right to ask the children to surrender their phones, prompting the police to push her to the ground, handcuff her and take her away, leaving the teens and counselors alone. Then police instructed the children to pick up their luggage and leave the airport. Police told the group they had been removed for being noisy on the plane, Lamy said, and not because their behavior had compromised safety on board.
At the moment the interview was taking place, Lamy said the children were still at the airport. Law enforcement had not fined the camp and the director had been allowed to return with the group. She had not been placed under arrest. They had been instructed to organize their return. Lamy said the children were "shocked."
Snopes reached out to Vueling, which replied with the same statement they posted on X. We asked the airline how they responded to accusations of antisemitism and to the fact that several passengers had seemingly signed affidavits asserting the children's behavior had not compromised the safety of the passengers. We also contacted Jacob, the lawyer for the camp, asking for more details about the complaint. We will update this report should any of them respond.