More than 50 French Jewish youths were removed from a Vueling flight in Valencia, Spain on Wednesday, allegedly for singing in Hebrew and following anti-Israel rhetoric directed at them by staff of the low-cost airline, according to Israel’s minister for combating antisemitism.

Amichai Chikli, Israel’s minister for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, accused Veuling in a post on X of being responsible for “one of the most serious […] severe antisemitic incidents [seen] recently.”

Chikli was commenting on a video that shows a young woman lying face down on what appears to be a boarding bridge, as one Spanish police officer handcuffs her and another instructs the person filming to move away.

Chikli identified the woman as an instructor of the Kineret Club, a summer camp operated for Jewish families by the Matana charitable association.

The i24 News television channel reported that the members of the group of 52 youths were aged 13-15. For that age group, Kineret Club arranged a summer camp that ended on Wednesday at Sant Carlès de la Rapita, a coastal resort city situated between Valencia and Barcelona.

A mother of one of the vacationers, Karine Lamy, told i24 that the children sang in Hebrew in the airplane until the flight crew told them to stop and threatened to call the police if they persisted. The children stopped but the police arrested the instructor and told them to exit the airplane. Some of the children were still at the airport of Valencia on Wednesday evening, awaiting an alternative flight back to France, i24 reported.

Caroline Yadan, a French lawmaker who represents French voters living in Israel and several other Mediterranean countries in the French parliament, wrote on X that if the claims about how Vueling handled the flight were accurate, then the airline “should have to answer in court” for its “very serious” actions.

Vueling had not replied to a request for comment by time of publication.

Enfoque Judio, a Spanish-Jewish news site, reported that according to some accounts, the instructor was arrested after she objected to the police’s demand that the students give up their phones.

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