Israel’s ambassador to Moscow reported today that some of the Jewish passengers involved in a riot this weekend at an airport in southern Russia had to hide in the terminal.
On Sunday, hundreds of people occupied Makhachkal airport in the Russian Republic of Dagestan to search planes and cars for Israelis and Jews to protest the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.
After this riot, at least 60 people were arrested and more than 20 were injured.
This Wednesday, Israeli Ambassador to Russia Alexander Ben Zvi said that some of the passengers had to hide in the airport terminal before being transported by helicopter to a safe location.
Alexander Ben Zvi blamed extremist elements in the Muslimmajority republic of Dagestan for the riots on Sunday evening.
Despite this episode, the Israeli ambassador opined that “in general there is no antiSemitism at an organized level in Russia.”
However, he argued that authorities “must take the incident seriously so that such actions are not repeated.”
“Of course, antiSemitism has always existed and will continue to exist. What is important is that it does not develop into what we saw in Makhachkala,” Ben Zvi told the Associated Press.
Among those injured at Makhachkal airport were nine police officers, two of whom were hospitalized, the Interior Ministry’s department for the North Caucasus Federal District said, adding that more than 150 participants in the riots had been identified.
Hundreds of people occupied the airport and the runway after calling on the messaging platform Telegram to get to the airport before flights from Israel arrived.
According to Russian media such as Echo of Dagestan, the crowd shouted antiSemitic slogans and “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is great). Shots were also heard.
Some of the people ran onto the runway and tried to board a plane that had arrived from Tel Aviv, according to videos posted on social media.
Security forces managed to evacuate the airport after several hours of unrest.
Bem Zvi also said that more than 30 people on the flight were Israeli citizens, but none of them were injured.
“In the end, most of them hid in a VIP room and stayed there until they could be taken by helicopter to a locked facility,” he said.
The Federal Aviation Authority initially ordered the airport to be closed until November 6th, but later announced that the measure would only apply until Tuesday.
The Islamist group Hamas launched a surprise attack on southern Israel on October 7, firing thousands of rockets and invading armed militiamen, leaving more than 1,400 people dead and two hundred taken hostage.
In response, Israel declared war on Hamas, a movement that has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007 and is classified as terrorist by the European Union and the United States, by bombing several of the group’s infrastructure in the Gaza Strip and imposing a total siege on the territory an interruption in water, fuel and electricity supplies.
The conflict has already caused thousands of deaths and injuries among military personnel and civilians in both areas.