Claim: A video shows Israeli citizens arriving at an airport in Greece and being welcomed with Palestinian flags by the local people.
Fact: The video actually shows a Greek delegation from the ‘March to Gaza’ initiative returning from Egypt and being welcomed by locals at Athens International Airport.
On 20 June 2025, a post on Threads included a video, claiming it showed Israeli citizens arriving at an airport in Greece and being welcomed with Palestinian flags by locals. The caption of the post reads as follows:
“Israelis arriving at the airport in Greece are being ‘welcomed’ with Palestinian flags.”
Fact or Fiction?
We first conducted a reverse-image search of the video’s keyframes to see if it actually showed Israeli citizens arriving in Greece and being welcomed with Palestinian flags. Initially, we came across results from Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) that made the same claim being fact-checked in this article. The post on Instagram was published on 22 June 2025 while the X post was shared on 20 June.
However, the claim appeared to have surfaced as early as 18 June 2025, with two posts on X claiming it showed a “ceremony” and “festive welcome” for people returning to Greece from the “Gaza March” or “march to Gaza” at “Eleftherios Venizelos airport”. More posts from 19 June and 20 June 2025 claimed the same. Another post from 20 June, without naming the airport in Greece, also claimed the video showed “crowds cheer the returnees from the march to break the siege on Gaza”.
A Google search for “Eleftherios Venizelos airport” confirmed that it is one of the primary international airports in Athens, Greece. Below is the logo from their website, showing its full name, “Athens International Airport Eleftherios Venizelos”:
Since social media posts were split on what the video actually showed, we conducted a Google search with Greek keywords for “Airport Gaza Palestine delegation” and “Venizelos Airport Gaza Palestine”. This led us to multiple news reports from 18 and 22 June 2025 that either shared the video in the claim from a slightly different angle or stills that matched it.
These reports stated that the video showed Greek citizens who participated in the Global March to Gaza initiative. The initiative involved thousands of activists from around the world marching to Gaza in an effort to “break Israel’s suffocating siege” on the area. According to Al Jazeera, activists aimed to pass through the Rafah crossing separating Egypt and Gaza. This delegation was forced to return from Egypt after local authorities did not let the march continue, citing safety reasons, reported alfavita.
The Greek news outlet politic.gr shared the video in the claim, just from a slightly different angle. A comparison of a frame from this video with a keyframe from the video in the claim is shown below:
As seen above, there are two main similarities between the frames, including: the digital clock at the top that shows the time as “23:21” and the grey-haired man with red and blue bags holding up the green portion of what appears to be the Palestinian flag.
Greek news outlet alfavita shared a similar version of the video in the claim, sourced from the Facebook account of a user called Chris Avramidis. A Google search for this name revealed that Avramidis is a journalist for the Greek news outlet Jacobin. His post on Facebook, dated 18 June 2025, also stated that the video showed an “Emotional reception of people who returned from the ‘March to Gaza’” and that it took place at Eleftherios Venizelos Airport.
Similarly, another Greek news outlet, The Magazine, shared the following picture from inside the airport at the time of the welcome ceremony. In this picture, we have highlighted two people who were also present in the video in the claim:
The video in the claim also shows these two faces within the first two seconds:
Lastly, BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) Greece also shared a version of the video in the claim, showing both of the people highlighted above, on their Facebook page on 18 June 2025. The post’s Greek caption translates into English as:
“Arrival from Egypt of the March to Gaza solidarity supporters in Athens..”
Hence, the video in the claim does not show Israeli citizens being welcomed in Greece with Palestinian flags.
Virality
On Threads, the video has amassed 854 K views.
On TikTok, the video has amassed 39.7 K views.
On X, the claim was shared here and here.
On Instagram, the claim was shared here.
Conclusion: The video actually shows a Greek delegation returning from Egypt after participating in the ‘March to Gaza’ initiative, and being welcomed by locals at Athens International Airport Eleftherios Venizelos. It does not show Israeli citizens being welcomed in Greece with Palestinian flags.
—
Background image in cover photo: Al Jazeera
To appeal against our fact-check, please send an email to appeals@sochfactcheck.com