Fact Check: Old videos FALSELY shared to claim UAE sent medical aid to Israel
Did the United Arab Emirates send medical aid to Israel during its ongoing conflict with Iran? This is what is being claimed with a video of an aeroplane landing on a runway and receiving a water-cannon salute. The other half of the video shows the unloading of large cargo shipments with 'UAE AID' written on them. The flags of the UAE and Israel were also visible on the aeroplane.
advertisementBelieving the viral claim to be true, many Facebook and X users criticised the UAE by saying that, despite being an Islamic nation, it chose to help Israel, not Iran. One such post said, 'Medical supplies from the UAE arrive for the Israeli gang. Is there a greater disgrace than this?!!! Shame.' Its archive can be viewed here. India Today found that the video is not recent but from 2021, when the UAE state carrier Etihad Airways' first scheduled passenger flight from Abu Dhabi arrived in Israel's Tel Aviv after ties between both countries were normalised.OUR PROBE
With the help of a keyframe search, we found photos similar to the viral video in news reports from April 2021. As per The Jerusalem Post, Etihad Airways' first-ever scheduled commercial flight to Israel from Abu Dhabi was welcomed in Tel Aviv's Ben-Gurion Airport by a water-cannon salute. Many delegates from both countries boarded the flight along with the CEO of Etihad Airways.advertisementEtihad Airways also published an article on this event, that said 'the launch of scheduled operations comes as the next historic step in developing diplomatic, trade and tourism ties between Israel and the UAE, which were inked as part of the Abraham Accords in September 2020.'We also found that a news outlet called Erem News had shared the viral video on YouTube on April 6, 2021. Notably, however, this video doesn't show the visuals of the cargo being unloaded as seen in the viral video. And that is because this part of the video is from September 2023, when the UAE sent flood relief aid shipments to Benghazi, Libya. The video can be seen in many news reports.# .. # # # https://t.co/UCz6jZ0DBq pic.twitter.com/Eq6WL9kcCH— (@wamnews) September 13, 2023We also couldn't find any credible news corroborating the viral claim. However, we did find news reports from May 2025 saying that Israel had allowed humanitarian assistance from the UAE into Gaza to feed 15,000 people there.It is thus evident that two unrelated videos were combined to show the UAE providing medical relief to Israel.
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