September 2, 2021

Do the Images show Ethiopian and Israeli Air Force members on duty?

HAQCHECKFact checking

HaqCheck has examined the images and rated the post as False.

Avatar: Hagos Gebreamlak
By Hagos Gebreamlak

A fact-checker at HaqCheck, he has worked for Fortune as a reporter previously.

By Kirubel Tesfaye

Kirubel works as a fact-checker at Addis Zeybe for HaqCheck. He is interested in learning and expanding his writing and journalistic skills.

Do the Images show Ethiopian and Israeli Air Force members on duty?

On  August 31, 2021, a compilation of images in support of the claim that Ethiopian and Israeli air forces agreed to work together in order to keep the regional peace, had been shared on a Facebook group having more than 200,000 members. However, HaqCheck has examined the images and rated the post as False.

The ongoing armed conflict in the Tigray region has spilled over to the neighboring Afar and Amhara regional states since the federal army withdrew from the major areas in Tigray at the end of June 2021.

It is to be remembered that Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed recently met Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and signed a military cooperation agreement. The post stating that Ethiopian and Israeli air forces agreed to work together on regional peace emerged. The Facebook post shared four images to support the claim.

However, HaqCheck has undertaken a reverse image search of the pictures to learn that the post doesn't actually prove the claim. The first two images were taken on October 3, 2019, while a Casa CN235 and Mirage 2000-5 fighter aircraft of French landed at Dire Dawa airport. The pictures show the Defense Attaché of the French Ambassador to Ethiopia, as well as several authorities of the Ethiopian Air Force.

Image 1

Image 2

The third image was posted 7 years ago on a website article entitled “Four Ethiopian air force pilots defect to Kenya.'' The image is noted to show a former Ethiopian Air Force pilot who defected to Canada in 2003.

Image 3

According to a Tineye search, the fourth image was first found on July 22, 2008. HaqCheck couldn't confirm the history behind the picture, for the sources that used the image have attached different stories making it arbitrary to identify the right one.

Image 4

HaqCheck has analyzed the images and proved that they do not show members of Ethiopian and Israeli air forces on duty to support the claim that air forces of the two countries have agreed to work together. Furthermore, no official statement is made regarding the military cooperation of the countries until this article is published and consequently rendered the post False.