Does a video on social media show soldiers celebrating the sold-out status of all flights to Israel, attributed to Jewish individuals traveling to Israel from various parts of the world? No, that's not true: The footage depicts soldiers chanting an old battle chant and was traced back on social media to October 10, 2023, shortly after Hamas launched an attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
The claim originated from a video (archived here) published on TikTok by @alilang33 on October 10, 2023. The caption in the video (translated from Korean into English by Lead Stories staff) reads:
All flights to Israel are sold out.
Jews from all over the world are going to Israel.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Mon Dec 11 17:31:39 2023 UTC)
While the text does not directly refer to the soldiers' group in the video, pairing the text with the video leaves the implication that the soldiers are celerating sold-out flights to Israel.
According to numerous social media posts featuring the same scenario, found through Google Lens reverse image search on December 11, 2023, (archived here) by Lead Stories, the source of the original footage is the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Telegram channel.
However, a thorough search on the IDF's Telegram channel using the keywords "soldiers AND airport" (archived here) yielded no evidence of the video's presence in the channel. Despite scrolling through hundreds of updates posted during the timeframe when the IDF allegedly shared the video, it remained elusive.
Two Instagram accounts @northernprovisions and @conflictobserver also posted the video here (archived here) and here (archived here) with similar translations of a separate statement from the official IDF Telegram.
These are what the posts looked like on Instagram at the time of writing:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Mon Dec 11 17:37:52 2023 UTC)
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Mon Dec 11 17:38:05 2023 UTC)
The same video was posted on Twitter (archived here) by @OGAride, and also by @havivrettiggur, a day before, in another video with captions that read:
The Golani Brigade in the 12th Battalion sing an old chant about the warrior hungering for the fight and returning safely home.
This is what the post looked like on Instagram at the time of writing:
(Source: Twitter screenshot taken on Mon Dec 11 17:32:27 2023 UTC)
There was another angle of the same event recorded and posted on Instagram (archived here) by @mybeautifullandofisrael, with a caption, that reads:
The energy is insane.
This is what the post looked like on Instagram at the time of writing:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Mon Dec 11 17:35:46 2023 UTC)
