WHAT WAS CLAIMED
A video shows London police arresting an Israeli officer and her husband for war crimes.
OUR VERDICT
False. The video shows a British adult content creator staging an arrest.
AAP FACTCHECK - A video featuring an adult content creator has been miscaptioned in a social media post claiming it shows Israel Defence Forces (IDF) officers being arrested in London.
The claim appears in an August 13 Facebook post featuring a video of two people standing next to a police car while officers search their belongings and pat them down.
"London police arrest an Israeli officer and her husband also an officer following accusation by human right organization of committing war crime in Rafah" the caption states.
A reverse image search shows the video was originally posted on Instagram on May 22, 2025, by adult content creator Tia Billinger, also known as Bonnie Blue.
The clip was supposedly posted by her sister, who captioned it: "As you may have seen, Tia has been arrested. We still don't have clarity on the situation but will keep you all in the loop as soon as we know. Thanks for all of the support in the last 24 hours. This isn't something we wanted to get out but it seems there is no privacy for her anymore."
However, another Instagram video posted by Billinger shows her laughing with an "officer" who features in the arrest video, and she says later in the clip: "just finished the shoot, very, very fun".
The officers in the video are also not wearing name badges, as is required by London's Metropolitan Police dress code policy (page 14).
The miscaptioned video is just one example of a slew of recent social media posts falsely claiming to show IDF officers being arrested.
An August 11 Facebook post claims to show a photo of an IDF officer named Yukhal Yulita who was arrested in the Netherlands while on holiday.
However, a reverse image search shows the same photo appeared in a 2016 Daily Mail article about long weekend celebrations in Newcastle, England.
Another post claims Dutch police arrested "Israeli Major General Shaul Sheitan" after he was accused of war crimes in Gaza.
But the photo actually shows a British man being arrested in Spain in 2022 over money laundering allegations linked to an Irish organised crime group, who was subsequently released without charge, according to The Irish Times.
A claim that an image shows Dutch police arresting an Israeli officer named "Yershal" appears in another post.
But the image actually shows a German woman facing trial in 2019 over illegal beauty treatments, according to the Aachener Zeitung newspaper.
The patch on the arm of the arresting officer in the image is also the logo of the Justice Ministry of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
The Netherlands Public Prosecution Service confirmed that no Israeli nationals have been arrested in the country in relation to war crimes.
No individuals with the names mentioned in the post have been arrested, a prosecution service spokesperson told AAP FactCheck.
In July 2025, two IDF soldiers visiting Belgium were taken into custody after human rights groups reported them to authorities for allegedly committing war crimes in Gaza, according to an Al Jazeera report.
The soldiers were later released and their case was referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
A pro-Palestinian non-profit group called the Hind Rajab Foundation has also sought the arrest of Israeli soldiers visiting Brazil, Peru, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Chile, but there are no reports of individuals being charged.
The ICC has issued arrest warrants for Hamas military commander Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes.
*Editor's note 27/08/2025 @5.30pm: The 20th paragraph has been updated to specify that a single organisation was seeking arrests of travelling IDF soldiers rather than multiple organisations, and to add details about the group.
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