Did the United Arab Emirates (UAE) send eight planes to Israel, carrying military aid and equipment in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel? No, that's not true: There's no proof to support that assertion. Additionally, the UAE has condemned Israeli ground operations in Gaza and also denied reports of the U.S. military using an Emirati air base to provide support to Israel.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X (formerly Twitter) published by Jackson Hinkle on November 3, 2023. The post's caption said:
🇮🇱🇦🇪 8 UAE planes carrying MILITARY AID & EQUIPMENT for the ISRAELI army have landed at airports in Israel over the past few days.
SHAME ON YOU! @MohamedBinZayed
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Mon Nov 6 14:52:16 2023 UTC)
The post on X provides no evidence to support its claim that the UAE sent eight planes carrying military aid and equipment to Israel in the days leading up to November 3, 2023, when the claim was posted. Lead Stories could find nothing online to support it either.
A Google News search (archived here) on November 6, 2023, using the terms "United Arab Emirates sent eight planes carrying military aid equipment to Israel," found no results matching the assertion in the post on X that the purported shipments had happened "over the past few days." However, a Jerusalem Post article (archived here) from April 29, 2022, reported that "Eight heavy transport aircraft belonging to UAE landed in Israel in past two weeks." The earlier report has no connection to the Hamas-Israel conflict that began 18 months later, in October 2023.
Additionally, in an October 28, 2023, Reuters report, the UAE condemned Israeli ground operations in Gaza. And a few weeks earlier, in an October 12, 2023, post to X (archived here), the UAE Ministry of Defence denied reports that the U.S. military was using its bases to provide military support to Israel. The post said:
The UAE Ministry of Defence denies the allegations circulated by some international media about the arrival of U.S. military aircraft at Al Dhafra Air Base in the UAE to provide support to Israel.
The Ministry confirmed that these allegations are baseless, as arrivals of U.S. aircraft at the Al Dhafra base have been taking place for several months according to pre-determined timetables within the framework of the military cooperation between the UAE and the United States of America and is not at all related to the developments currently taking place in the region.
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
The UAE Ministry of Defence denies the allegations circulated by some international media about the arrival of U.S. military aircraft at Al Dhafra Air Base in the UAE to provide support to Israel.
-- وزارة الدفاع |MOD UAE (@modgovae) October 12, 2023
The Ministry confirmed that these allegations are baseless, as arrivals of U.S.... pic.twitter.com/XcBLdaf4IR
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Other Lead Stories fact checks involving the Hamas-Israel conflict can be seen here.
