An Israeli tourist was filmed pushing a Sri Lankan tour guide from a boat into the sea. The group's claim that it was a joke intensified the online backlash.Israeli tourist pushes Sri Lankan guide off boat into sea, group defends it as 'joke' (Photos: @RT_com/X)An Israeli tourist was seen pushing a Sri Lankan tour guide into the sea from a boat, before the people around her laughed as she fell into the water.
The video of the incident sparked outrage on social media, with users condemning the tourists’ behaviour and their explanation that it was “just a joke.”The footage, shared by X account RT, showed a group of tourists sitting on a boat with the Sri Lankan tour guide beside them. She appeared to be drinking water when one of the tourists suddenly pushed her over the side and into the sea.The person recording the video and others on the boat were then seen laughing at the incident.
The footage showed the woman falling into the water as the group continued reacting to what had happened.Watch the video here: ISRAELI tourists FILM themselves PUSHING SRI LANKAN worker OFF BOAT and INTO WATER — LAUGHING Say 'IT WAS a JOKE' and they didn't 'MEAN TO BE MEAN' 'We're ENLISTING in a MONTH. We're GOOD KIDS.
We don't deserve this HATE' https://t.co/j7gkKP6rzD— RT (@RT_com) November 8, 2026 The video quickly drew criticism online, particularly over the tourists’ apparent amusement at pushing the worker into the water.Israeli journalist Daniel Amram later shared more details about the incident on X, quoting the young people involved as saying they had not intended to humiliate the tour guide. “The young people involved in the incident in Sri Lanka respond: ‘It was a joke, the worker is fine, it wasn’t meant to be mean,’” Amram wrote.According to his post, the group said the tour guide had participated in the joke and that there had been no attempt to humiliate her. “We’re enlisting in a month. We’re good kids; we don’t deserve this hate,” they said, according to Amram.Take a look at the post here:Their explanation did little to calm the backlash, with several users questioning how pushing someone from a boat could be considered harmless fun.One user criticised what they described as the group’s repeated use of the “it was a joke” explanation and questioned why they believed such behaviour would be funny to anyone.Another accused the tourists of displaying a sense of entitlement, while a third said the problem was the idea of pushing someone into deep water for amusement or to impress others.The video’s circulation also drew attention to the power imbalance involved, with the woman appearing to be working as a tour guide while the tourists were guests on the boat.- Ends