Did Kosovan and Albanian presidents say that Israel should keep on bombing "Palestine" and "hospitals in Palestine"? No, that's not true: Kosovan President Vjosa Osmani and Albanian President Bajram Begaj both expressed their support for Israel in the ongoing conflict with Hamas on October 7, 2023, but never called for violence. Lead Stories did not find any statements or reports that would support this claim.
The claim appeared in a TikTok video (archived here) published on October 29, 2023, with a text overlay (translated from Croatian to English by Lead Stories staff) that read:
I used to say 'Kosovo is Kosovo,' 'Kosovo is Albania' but now I say 'Kosovo is S.E.R.B.I.A.' Because Kosovo and Albania presidents said that 'Israel should just keep on bombing Palestine and hospitals in Palestine'
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Nov 1 09:41:42 2023 UTC)
Vjosa Osmani, president of Kosovo, expressed her solidarity with Israel in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on October 7, 2023, (archived here). She also strongly condemned "the bombing of a hospital in Gaza" on X (archived here) on October 18, 2023.
Similarly, the president of Albania, Bajram Begaj, wrote in a post on X (archived here) on the same day that Albania condemned the attacks on Israel by Hamas. There is no trace of any comments encouraging violence towards Gaza on his X account, or on the Albanian presidency website, which collects the president's speeches, interviews and statements.
Lead Stories' search for the phrases "Kosovo Osmani bombing Palestine" in English (archived here) and "Kosovo Osmani bombardiranje Palestine" in Croatian (archived here), conducted on October 31, 2023, using Google News' index of thousands of credible news sites, did not reveal any factual reports on this claim.
The search for the keywords "Albania Begaj bombing Palestine" (archived here), and the search for the same terms in Croatian (archived here) also did not result in any statements or evidence that support the alleged claim.
