The Orange Wings Question
When an airlift’s numbers don’t add up, credibility is what crashes.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, United Hatzalah of Israel wasted no time announcing a bold mission. They called it Operation Orange Wings, and in their 2022 annual report they wrote that they had “chartered 35 humanitarian, rescue, medical and cargo flights which airlifted 3,000 refugees to Israel,” shipped “145 tonnes of humanitarian aid,” and sent “200 volunteers to Moldova.” It was presented as one of the largest private rescue operations of the war.
On paper, the story was heroic. But when you put the numbers side by side with official data, the picture changes. Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics counted about 12,175 Ukrainians who immigrated between February and July of that year, with total estimates reaching 15,000 to 18,000 Ukrainians in the country by March. If United Hatzalah’s figure of 3,000 evacuees were accurate, that would mean one NGO, working without any formal government partnership, was responsible for nearly a quarter of all arrivals. That scale should have been reflected in government briefings, parliamentary debates, or even acknowledgments from international refugee agencies. To my knowledge, it was not. And in cases like this, silence can be as telling as any spoken word.
Then there is the math. Divide 3,000 by 35 and you arrive at an average of 85 passengers per flight. Anyone who has ever flown knows what that means. A Boeing 737 or Airbus A320 typically seats 150 to 190 people. Even smaller Embraer and Bombardier regional jets carry 90 to 120. So what are we to believe? That every plane went out half empty during the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II? Or that the headline numbers were, at best, optimistic? Neither explanation sits comfortably with common sense.
And the fine print of United Hatzalah’s own report complicates things further. Those 35 flights, it turns out, were not all passenger flights. They are described as a mix of “humanitarian, rescue, medical and cargo.” If some flights were moving medical equipment, or only a few patients, then the passenger flights would have had to carry far more than 85 people each to make the 3,000 total. That would require full, large jets operating out of small airports in Moldova and Romania on a near-daily basis. No evidence has been offered that such a sustained airlift took place.
By contrast, other Jewish organizations documented their efforts carefully. The Jewish Federations reported 12,771 evacuees and aid to 38,723 refugees, with numbers coordinated directly with government agencies. The American Jewish Committee published details of specific flights, right down to how many passengers were on board. United Hatzalah has never made such records public.
The credibility gap is even more worrying when placed against the group’s history. In 2021, an Israeli District Court concluded that United Hatzalah’s leadership had engaged in a “coordinated plan” to make false and defamatory claims in a dispute with Magen David Adom. That ruling, while unrelated to Ukraine, showed a willingness to stretch the truth for institutional advantage. Which is why today, when numbers are presented without evidence, it is fair to ask hard questions. If the figures cannot be independently substantiated, then what is being offered is less a record of heroism than a story told for effect.
This matters because truth is not just another value among many. It is the foundation of trust. When a humanitarian organization inflates its achievements, it does not only mislead donors. It chips away at confidence in the entire nonprofit sector. It rewrites the historical record of who did what in a time of crisis. And it teaches the public that even charity can be spun like a campaign. That is a loss far bigger than one NGO’s reputation.
The irony is that the work United Hatzalah did accomplish was not trivial. Volunteers did help. Refugees were brought to safety. Aid was delivered. Hundreds of people likely owe them thanks. But by stretching the story, they undermined their own good deeds. When credibility is treated as expendable, everyone loses: donors who gave in good faith, refugees whose rescue is misrepresented, and the broader public that depends on honesty in times of crisis.
Numbers matter. But truth matters more. And when history looks back on the Ukraine crisis, it will not be the inflated claims that endure. It will be the verifiable acts of courage and compassion that stand as testimony.
