The Spanish airline Vueling removed a group of French Jewish campers from a plane and arrested a camp director over what it says was “highly disruptive” and “inappropriate” behavior — but a camper claimed it was because one of their group spoke in Hebrew.

Fifty-two children who are part of the Kinneret Club, a Jewish summer camp, ranging in age between 10 and 15, were on a Paris-bound flight as the plane was set to depart from Manises Airport at Valencia, Spain. Many of the children, who were returning from a summer camp at Callela, Spain, were wearing tzitzit and Star of David symbols.

In an interview with CNews, a camper who was on the flight said that the crew first approached the teenagers after one of them said a word in Hebrew and warned him “not to shout again.”

“They threatened to call security if he spoke loudly again. After that we stayed quiet and calm. Five minutes later, the Civil Guard entered the plane. They went straight to talk to our group leader. They asked about the nationality of the group members. The leader confirmed we were French heading home. An officer said they heard some were Israeli,” the teenager told CNews. 

“A child sang a song in Hebrew, and the staff threatened to call the police,” the mother of one of the campers, Karine Lamy, told i24 News. Police were eventually brought on board and escorted the campers and their chaperones off the plane.

In a recorded interview, a passenger on the plane, Damien, told X user SwordOfSolomon that the campers entered the plane “without shouting” and were “really polite teenagers.”

“We kept wondering why they were calling the police because we didn’t really see anyone dangerous,” the passenger said. “The children were very polite. We never understood what happened.”

Video on X surfaced of the camp director, a 21-year-old woman, being violently pinned to the ground and handcuffed by members of the Civil Guard after she objected to the police allegedly confiscating the children’s phones to erase videos.

The family of the camp director told a senior fellow at the Tel Aviv Institute, Hen Mazzig, that after they were taken off the plane, the children were ordered to hand over their phones and delete videos. The camp director was arrested after refusing to comply with the demand. 

The camp director was taken into a separate room inside the airport, where she was informed she would be banned from entering Spain for two years, according to Mr. Mazzig. 

“He then began questioning her about Israel,” Mr. Mazzig reported. 

In a statement, Vueling said the group had “mishandled emergency equipment and actively disrupted the mandatory safety demonstration.” The airline denied “any suggestion” that their crew’s decision to remove the campers was related to their religion. 

“A group of passengers engaged in highly disruptive behaviour and adopted a very confrontational attitude, putting at risk the safe conduct of the flight,” the airline said in its statement.

But another passenger, with the Instagram user name dusan.dmh, said on Instagram that the children “behaved well for teenagers” and the safety crew called the police during the safety demonstration “because they mentioned a safety problem on the plane.”

“They disembarked the children and made us take off 2.5 hours late for nothing,” the passenger said in a comment on Instagram. 

Ms. Lamy said the campers were traumatized by the ejection. 

“This feels like a scene from another era. They were targeted simply for expressing their culture,” Ms. Lamy told i24 News. 

Vueling, a low-cost airline based in Spain, is owned by International Airlines Group, a major multinational airline holding company that also owns British Airways and Aer Lingus, among others. Qatar Airways, the national airline of Qatar, currently has more than 25 percent ownership stake in IAG.