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Claims that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has escaped to Berlin amid the Iran war, which was sparked by US and Israeli airstrikes, have swamped social media platforms.
On Saturday evening, the same day that the airstrikes took place, flight-tracking data showed that Israel’s government plane had landed at Berlin’s Brandenburg Airport.
Online, users claimed that Israeli Netanyahu was on board the flight. Some posts accused him of having fled the country following the start of coordinated US and Israeli strikes on Iran.
One post, with more than 1.5 million views, claimed to have tracked Netanyahu to a bunker “somewhere in Germany”.
Off the back of some of these claims, a protest was organised in Berlin demanding to know whether Netanyahu or another member of the Israeli government was on board.
Some claimed that Germany had breached “Article 7” (likely of the Rome Statute) by failing to arrest Netanyahu when the plane landed, as the Israeli leader is subject to an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in the Gaza Strip.
Germany, which is a member of the ICC, would be legally obligated to arrest Netanyahu should he step onto German soil.
Most of these allegations rely on flight-tracking data from Flightradar, and a review of this data indeed confirms that the Israeli government plane, known as Wing of Zion, departed Beersheba in Israel in the early afternoon of Saturday.
The aircraft then spent several hours circling over the Mediterranean before landing at Berlin’s primary airport in the evening.
There is, however, no evidence to suggest that Netanyahu was on board the plane.
A picture posted by his office shows him attending a security meeting in Kirya, in Tel Aviv, with the IDF Chief of Staff and Director of the Mossad one day after the plane landed.
A photograph was attached showing him attending the meeting on Sunday. His office also released a photograph showing him on the roof of a building in Kirya.
Another video posted on Monday shows him at the site of an Iranian missile strike in Beit Shemesh. His presence there was corroborated by multiple Israeli outlets.
A spokesperson for the German foreign ministry said the Israeli government “asked us if they could park the plane here” when prompted by a question on the aircraft’s landing in Berlin.
According to the spokesperson, only the flight crew and the pilot were on board the flight.
Israel’s government plane has routinely left Israeli airspace during rounds of fighting with Iran, presumably for safety.
In June 2025, Wing of Zion took off from Ben Gurion Airport hours after Israel launched its attack on Iranian nuclear and ballistic missiles. Similarly, in April 2024, the plane flew out of Nevatim Airbase, which was later targeted by Iranian drones and missiles.
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