A group of 50 Jewish children returning home from summer camp in Spain was forcibly removed from a Vueling Airlines flight bound for Paris after one child briefly sang a Hebrew song. The group’s 21-year-old supervisor was violently arrested during the incident, which unfolded on Wednesday afternoon aboard a flight at Valencia Airport.

According to multiple witness accounts and video evidence, the confrontation began when cabin crew aboard the Spanish airline warned the child singing in Hebrew to stop or risk police intervention. Though the singing ceased immediately, police boarded the plane just minutes later and ordered the removal of the entire group before takeoff. The young travelers, ages 13 to 15, were identifiable by visible religious items such as tzitzis and Star of David necklaces.

The group’s supervisor, who attempted to intervene when officers demanded the children surrender their phones—allegedly to delete any videos of the incident—was thrown to the ground and handcuffed in front of the teens. She was taken into custody as the children stood stunned.

“The children are extremely shocked. It feels like the 1939–1945 period,” said Karine Lamy, a parent of one of the teens. “This is a characterized antisemitic act against minors who did nothing wrong.”

Lamy told i24NEWS and Enfoque Judío that law enforcement officers demanded the children lay their phones on the floor, reportedly to prevent any documentation of the incident from being shared. When the group leader objected, she was accused of making a “strange gesture” or “threatening to assault” officers—a claim strongly denied by witnesses and parents.

According to Lamy, Vueling staff did nothing to assist the stranded children after their removal, offering no alternative travel plans or support. “We are panicking for them,” she said. “The airline abandoned them.”

Eyewitnesses and independent passengers supported the teens’ version of events. One passenger, unaffiliated with the group, posted on Instagram: “They boarded the plane normally, without shouting—which is rare in adolescents. I insist that they were behaving well. Nobody on the plane understood what was happening.”

Some of the children were reportedly compared to “terrorists” by crew members, and one staff member allegedly called Israel a “murderous state,” though those claims have not been independently verified. What is clear is that the children were barred from flying for what authorities later described simply as a “disturbance.”

The group had reportedly made noise on a previous flight during their outbound trip to Spain, leading some to believe that the crew had been “lying in wait” for them on their return journey. A group instructor can be heard in video footage telling the children, “They made everyone get off the plane. One part is going to take another plane, others are going to return by bus—it’s a monumental mess.”

Following the disembarkation, some of the teens were rebooked on other flights, while others remained stranded in Valencia. A second group, including 20 younger teens and four adult chaperones, spent the night in a nearby hotel and was awaiting departure on Thursday.

The status of the arrested supervisor remains unclear. It is not yet known whether the children’s phones were confiscated or whether the group was forced to sign agreements prohibiting the sharing of any footage from the incident.

Despite video evidence, witness testimony, and the religious targeting of minors, Spanish authorities have yet to classify the event as a hate crime. For many, that silence speaks volumes.

“A child sang in Hebrew,” said Lamy. “And for that, an entire group of Jewish teenagers was expelled from a plane—and their guardian was arrested. We’ve returned to the darkest hours of Europe’s past.”

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)