After the announcement of the arrival of a plane from Israel, dozens of men stormed the tarmac and terminal of Makhachkala airport, the capital of the Russian Republic, early Sunday evening. The predominantly Muslim population of Dagestan was apparently looking for the passengers on the flight.
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In the middle of the evening, Dagestani authorities announced that the situation was “under control,” announced that police were stationed at the airport and called on the crowd to stop their “illegal acts.”
According to the Russian aviation authority Rossaviatsia, the airport was closed and flights were diverted to other airfields.
Israel, for its part, called on Russia to “protect all Israeli citizens and all Jews.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office stressed in a statement that Israel “views with seriousness attempts to attack Israeli citizens and Jews around the world.”
According to the specialist website Flightradar, a Red Wings aircraft from Tel Aviv landed in Makhachkala at 7:00 p.m. local time (1:00 p.m. Eastern Time). According to the independent Russian media Sota, it was a transit flight that was scheduled to take off again for Moscow at 9 p.m. (3 p.m. Eastern Time).
It cannot currently be clarified whether the aircraft was still on the tarmac and what the situation of its passengers was.
According to the independent Russian media Sota, after the arrival of this flight from Israel was announced, men first gathered in front of the airport to check the passports of those leaving in search of Israeli citizens.
According to the Russian newspaper Izvestia and the pro-Kremlin broadcaster RT, they then stormed onto the roof of the airport and onto the tarmac. Videos posted on Telegram show them breaking through barriers, trying to control cars leaving the airport or forcing doors into the terminal to open. One of the videos shows a man positioned on one of the wings of a Russian Red Wings aircraft.
🇷🇺 FLASH – A crowd of pro-Palestinian activists “looking for Jews” stormed Makhachkala airport #Dagestan, after announcing an escape from Israel. The Russian National Guard is on duty. (Il Messaggero) pic.twitter.com/zcIVZGJjsU
— Mediavenir (@Mediavenir) October 29, 2023
AFP could not immediately verify the authenticity of these videos.
A video shows one of the men holding a sign that reads “Child murderers have no place in Dagestan” and others shouting “Allah Akbar.” Some in the crowd waved Palestinian flags.
“What is happening now in Makhachkala is bad. Very, very bad,” commented RT boss Margarita Simonian on X (ex-Twitter).
Earlier in the day, the information minister of the neighboring republic of Chechnya, Akhmed Dudayev, called on Telegram to remain calm and avoid “provocations” in view of the increasing tensions in the Russian Caucasus.
Attacks on Jews “will play into the hands of our enemies who are deliberately provoking the world in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” he said in a video.
Chechnya and Dagestan are two unstable republics in Russia whose populations are predominantly Muslim.
The war between Israel and Hamas entered its 23rd day on Sunday. The trigger was the unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement on Israeli soil from the Gaza Strip on October 7th. Since then, according to Israeli authorities, more than 1,400 people have been killed, most of them civilians who were shot, burned alive or died by mutilation on the first day of the attack, and 230 people have been taken hostage.
In retaliation, the Israeli army is relentlessly bombarding the Gaza Strip, controlled by Hamas since 2007, and besieging this narrow Palestinian territory where some 2.4 million Palestinians are crowded. Land operations have also been carried out there for several days. Hamas, which has been in power in Gaza since 2007, claims that more than 8,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in Israeli bombings.