A photo (here, here, and here) of the Israeli Olympic team allegedly making a formation that reads ‘Bring them home now’ in the ongoing Paris 2024 Olympics is doing the rounds on social media. We fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: Photo shows the Israeli Olympic team making the ‘Bring them home now’ formation in the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Fact: This photo is from November 2023 and is unrelated to the Paris 2024 Olympics. This features the Israeli senior artistic swimming team athletes who posed to form letters that read ‘Bring them home now.’ This was done calling for the release of the Israeli hostages. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
To check the veracity of the viral claim, we performed a reverse image search on the viral photo. This search led us to the same photo uploaded on the official Instagram handle of the ‘Israeli Senior Artistic Swimming Team.’ They posted this along with another collage of photos featuring athletes making a formation in the pool that reads ‘Bring them home now.’ Contrary to the claim that this photo was taken during the ongoing Paris 2024 Olympics, the original photo was posted in November 2023.
The description of the post in Hebrew, translated to English, reads, ‘The Israel artistic swimming team was photographed this weekend at the National Pool at Wingate Institute for a special photo in honour of the repatriation of the hostages to Israel. Ten female athletes participated in the photographs taken from a drone and underwater.’ According to the post’s description, these photographs were taken to raise awareness of the crimes against humanity committed against Israelis and citizens from many countries.
The photographers who took these photos also posted (here and here) them on Instagram in November 2023. Through a further search on the internet, we learned that the same photos were also posted by the official ‘X’ account of the State of Israel on 19 November 2023. Additionally, we found a few news reports on this photograph published by the Israeli media here and here.
Meanwhile, the Paris 2024 Olympics, which began on 26 July 2024, will host competitions in various sports and games in which athletes from various countries across the globe will participate. A total of 88 athletes (here and here) from Israel are participating in the event this year, which will end on 11 August 2024.
To sum up, an old and unrelated photo of the Israeli artistic swimming team making the ‘Bring them home now’ formation in a pool is falsely being shared as a photo taken during the Paris 2024 Olympics.
