An image that claims to show Israeli swimmers calling for the release of hostages held by Hamas during the Paris 2024 Olympics is going viral across social media.
The image shows swimmers using their bodies to spell out “Bring them home now!,” a slogan that’s been associated with calls for the release of Israeli hostages.
A viral Facebook post sharing the image says, “The Israeli Olympic team was not allowed to wear their yellow ‘Bring Them Home’ pins at the Olympic games. So they decided to spell it out for the entire world to see it!”
On X, a post with over 50 million views makes a similar claim. It says Israeli Olympic athletes formed the “bring them home now” message during practice because they couldn’t wear pins with the same slogan during the Paris 2024 games.
THE QUESTION
Was the image of Israeli swimmers spelling out “bring them home now” taken during the Paris 2024 Olympics?
THE SOURCES
- RevEye, a reverse image search tool
- Google Translate
- Instagram posts shared in November 2023 by the Wingate Institute in Israel and Israel’s artistic swimming team
- Aerial photographer Adam Spiegel’s Instagram post on Nov. 18, 2023
THE ANSWER
No, the image of Israeli swimmers spelling out “bring them home now” was not taken during the Paris 2024 Olympics.
WHAT WE FOUND
The image of Israeli artistic swimmers spelling out “bring them home now” was not taken during the Paris 2024 Olympics. It was taken in Israel and first shared online in November 2023 – a little more than a month after the start of the Israel-Hamas War.
Using a reverse image search tool, VERIFY traced the image of the Israeli swimmers back to an Instagram post from the Wingate Institute, a sports complex in Israel, shared on Nov. 18, 2023.
The post translated from Hebrew to English says, “The girls of Israel’s artistic swimming team training at the Wingate Institute, the National Institute for Sports Excellence, led by coaches Svetlana Belcher and Risa Kunin – in a cry for the return of the abductees and raising awareness in the world of the crimes against humanity committed on October 7, 2023 by Hamas terrorists.”
The official Instagram account for Israel’s artistic swimming team shared the same image with a similar caption one day later.
Aerial photographer Adam Spiegel, who is credited for the image alongside photographer Michael Braunstein, also posted it on Instagram on Nov. 18, 2023.
So we can VERIFY this image was taken in Israel in November 2023 – not during the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Some people online also questioned if the image is real due to the size of the swimmers that make up the exclamation point.
The image is made up of real photos that were edited together, Spiegel confirmed to VERIFY. He said the composite image was created using drone and underwater photography.
VERIFY could not confirm if Israeli athletes have been banned from wearing “bring them home” pins at the Olympics, as the viral posts suggest. The International Olympic Committee did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publishing.
This story is also available in Spanish / Lee este artículo también en español: Imagen de nadadores israelíes deletreando 'regrésenlos a casa ahora' no es de los Juegos Olímpicos 2024
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