By Hazel Gandhi
Posts on social media claiming that Israel has declared a public holiday or national festival in the country on January 22 in lieu of the Ram temple inauguration in Ayodhya are false.
BOOM found that the claims are false; we did not find any credible news reports or announcements from official sources that confirmed this.
The long-awaited Ram temple is set to be inaugurated on January 22 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Modi was one of the first world leaders to speak in support of Israel when its war with Palestine first broke out on October 7, 2023, making it clear that India stood "in solidarity with Israel" at the time.
Amid this, posts on social media claiming that Israel has declared a public holiday to celebrate the inauguration of the Ram temple are viral online. A caption on Facebook reads, "Israel has declared a national holiday on January 22, 2024"
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
Similar posts are circulating on X as well.
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
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FACT CHECK
BOOM found that the claims are false and the Israeli government has made no announcement about a public holiday on January 22.
We ran a keyword search on Google to look for any English or Hebrew reports about a public holiday, but did not find any results.
BOOM also reached out to a fact-checker from Israel who said that they, too, could not find any verified news reports related to the viral claim.
We then checked the verified X account of Naor Gilon, Israel's ambassador to India to look for any related announcements. At the time of writing this article, Gilon's page carries no news about a public holiday being declared in Israel on January 22.
