Wikimedia Commons
Hundreds of people broke into an airport in Makhachkala, the capital of the Russian republic of Dagestan, and stormed the tarmac in an apparent attempt on Sunday to locate Israeli passengers on a flight that had landed from Tel Aviv, according to Russian media reports and footage of the incident.
Video circulating on Russian social media showed the crowd surging through the terminal, some waving Palestinian flags. Other protesters shouted antisemitic chants, according to local media. Some carried signs reading “child killers have no place in Dagestan” and “we are against Jewish refugees,” the independent newspaper the Moscow Times reported.
There were reports of demonstrators stopping cars outside the airport to check occupants’ identification papers, while others on the tarmac allegedly swarmed onto the wing of an airliner. A security source told the Israeli news outlet N12 that a small number of Israelis and Jews in the area had been secured, and that they were expected to be evacuated to Moscow.