50 Jewish youths booted from flight in Spain in alleged antisemitic incident; airline says group posed danger to flight safety

A group of some 50 Jewish students from France was forcibly removed from an airplane at an airport in Valencia, Spain, on Wednesday evening, according to reports, apparently after singing loudly in Hebrew aboard the plane.

Some claim that the incident was fueled by antisemitism, although the airline has denied this.

According to reports, the 50 members of a Jewish summer camp were singing in Hebrew aboard the plane and were told to stop by flight attendants, who warned that the police would be called if the singing continued.

A woman claiming to be the mother of one of the youths tells i24 News that the group stopped singing but that police came aboard anyway, and ordered the summer camp director and children to deplane.

Vueling, the low-cost Spanish airline on whose plane the incident happened, denies accusations of antisemitism that have arisen around the incident, saying the youths were “engaged in highly disruptive behavior and adopted a very confrontational attitude, putting at risk the safe conduct of the flight.”

It says they “mishandled emergency equipment and actively disrupted the mandatory safety demonstration” and ignored “multiple warnings,” leading crew to summon police.

However, witnesses say staff made incendiary statements toward the group, including one who allegedly called Israel a “terrorist state.”

Video from the scene shows police handcuffing a woman pinned to the ground by security agents.

The woman who was arrested and beaten is the director of the Kinneret summer camp.

Fifty Jewish French children, aged 10 – 15, were singing Hebrew songs on the plane.

The @vueling airline crew said that Israel is a terrorist state and forced the children off the aircraft; they… https://t.co/V78PEHB58B pic.twitter.com/HizF6SZoaD

— עמיחי שיקלי – Amichai Chikli (@AmichaiChikli) July 23, 2025

Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli shares a video on X of a woman, said to be the director of the Kinneret summer camp, being violently arrested.

“The @vueling airline crew said that Israel is a terrorist state and forced the children off the aircraft; they are now in Valencia, waiting to return to France,” Chikli writes. “In line with Hamas’s campaign of lies echoed by Al Jazeera, Haaretz, and others, we are seeing numerous severe antisemitic incidents recently; this is one of the most serious.”