A mob of hundreds of predominantly young men in the Russian Muslim-majority region of Dagestan stormed an airport and a hotel on Sunday after claims that a flight full of Jews from Tel Aviv, Israel, had landed, leading to riots and at least 20 injuries as the mob tried to hunt down Jews.
The rioting and violence took place at the airport in Makhachkala with video clips circulating on social media showing members of the mob waving Palestinian flags and storming the airport tarmac, leading to the Russian aviation authority Rosaviatsia shutting down the airport until security forces were able to get the situation under control, the BBC reports.
In one clip posted to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, a young member of the mob is asked “Why are you here?” and replied, “I came for the Jews,” clarifying that he was there to kill Jews with a knife.
Other videos showed members of the mob hunting for Jews in a nearby hotel as well as the airport terminal, asking where the Jews were located. Another was taken aboard a plane that had landed with the captain of the aircraft stating, “There’s an angry mob outside that doesn’t know where we’ve come from and why [we are here]. It’s possible we’ll also come under attack.”
According to the BBC, the mob was largely organised on the encrypted messaging app Telegram, with a Telegram channel calling on locals to head to the airport and find any Jewish person they could.
When the mob was unable to find any Jews, they turned on local police and attacked them, leading to at least 20 people becoming injured, two of them seriously, with nine police suffering injuries as well.
When the situation was brought back under control, police arrested at least 60 people and identified 150 of those who took part in the attempted pogrom.
Sergei Melikov, the governor of Dagestan, condemned the rioters saying, “There is no honour in hurling abuse at strangers, searching their pockets looking for their passports!”
“What happened at our airport is outrageous and should receive the appropriate assessment from law enforcement. This will be done,” he added.
Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed that the attempted pogrom was the result of “outside influence” and stated, “It is well known and obvious that yesterday’s events around Makhachkala airport are largely the result of outside interference, including information influence.”
On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin called a meeting of law enforcement and other security officials regarding the Dagestan airport incident as Peskov claimed that the meeting would be used to talk about “attempts by the West to use the events in the Middle East to divide the (Russian) society.”
In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office released a statement on the incident saying the country “expects the Russian law enforcement authorities to protect the safety of all Israeli citizens and Jews wherever they may be and to act resolutely against the rioters and against the wild incitement directed against Jews and Israelis.”
President of Russia’s Federation of Jewish Communities, Rabbi Alexander Boroda, also called on the Russian government to act following the incident.
Rabbi Boroda claimed that the scenes at the airport
undermined the basic foundations of our multicultural and multinational state … Moreover, we see that local authorities were not prepared for such incidents and allowed large-scale violations of law and order and mass demonstrations with open threats to Jews and Israelis.
I call on the country’s leadership and law enforcement agencies to find and punish all the organisers and participants of these anti-Semitic actions in the strictest possible manner.
The attempted pogrom in Dagestan is just the latest antisemitic incident following the start of hostilities between the terrorist group Hamas and Israel after the October 7th massacre of over a thousand Israeli civilians near the border of the Gaza Strip.
In several European countries, including the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, pro-Palestinian rallies have seen tens of thousands of people take to the streets in support of Palestinians, with some openly in support of Hamas as well.
In Germany, antisemitic incidents have soared since the start of hostilities, including an attempted firebombing of a synagogue in Berlin.
In one case, a known Islamic State fighter named Tarik S., who had fought for the terror group in Syria under the nom de guerre “Osama the German” was arrested in Duisburg after German authorities had been tipped off by a foreign intelligence agency that he was plotting a terrorist attack.
It was alleged that the Islamic State radical had searched pro-Israel events online and was plotting to use a truck to ram the vehicle into demonstrators in the same style at the 2016 Nice attack or the 2016 Berlin Christmas market attack, both of which led to the deaths of dozens of people.
