Russian officials on Monday said more than 20 people were injured when a mob of antisemites descended on the Makhachkala airport in Dagestan on Sunday night, looking for Jews to attack after a flight landed from Tel Aviv.
Local health officials said ten of the injuries required hospitalization, and two were in critical condition. Nine of the injured were police officers. Security officials said none of the passengers on the plane from Tel Aviv were harmed.
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Russian media reported on Monday that 60 of the attackers were arrested after the incident, and 150 more have been identified.
Western media sought to downplay the incident, soft-pedaling it as a “protest” against Israel’s bombardment of Gaza that got a little out of hand, but videos uploaded by the protesters themselves showed it was a bloodthirsty lynch mob. The attackers brandished Palestinian flags and shouted “Allahu Akbar,” plus a variety of antisemitic slogans, as they breached runway security and surrounded airplanes. Significant damage was reported to the airport terminal from the rampage. One group of attackers tried to overturn a police truck that responded to the scene.
Airline personnel hustled passengers back into their planes for safety as the mob spread across the tarmac. Passengers reported hearing announcements from their flight crews warning that their planes could “come under attack” from the “angry mob” thronging outside.
Several eyewitnesses said the attackers tried to check passports and demanded airport staff tell them where the “Jews” could be found.
One passenger from the Tel Aviv flight said he was accosted by the mob, but released unharmed after he convinced them he was not Jewish. “We are not touching non-Jews today,” the rioters told him.
The UK Guardian reported on Sunday that the airport assault was organized on social media:
Followers of Utro Dagestan, one of the Telegram accounts that regularly carries news mixed with conspiracy theories, were told to besiege the local airport, interrogate arriving passengers and demand that they denounce the Israeli government.
The account also called on local people to follow any arriving Israelis, take pictures of their vehicles and write down the addresses where they were staying.
Other video from the airport showed people accosting airline passengers, including those who appeared to have just arrived on the flight from Israel. They said they were also locals who had traveled abroad for medical help.
Reuters reported that the Utro Dagestan account did not use the word “Jew” in its messages, but said the passengers on the plane from Tel Aviv were “unclean,” and urged followers to “wait for them on the street outside the airport and catch them before they go their separate ways.”
The Makhachkala airport was closed after the rampage on Sunday night, but on Monday morning, Russian aviation officials announced the airport had been “freed from people who had broken into it.”
Antisemitic attacks were perpetrated in other locations across Dagestan on Sunday, including a Jewish community center vandalized by arsonists in the city of Nalchik, and a mob invading a hotel in Khasavyurt to search its rooms for “Jewish refugees.”
“We are receiving reports from 4 different cities in Dagestan, a Muslim Republic in Southern Russia, of mobs demanding to kill the Jews. A direct result of the Russian government’s siding with Hamas in this conflict and lack of condemnation of the massacre of 7/10,” said Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, chief rabbi of Moscow until Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Goldschmidt noted the antisemitic attacks occurred “days after a Hamas delegation (led by Musa Abu Marzouk) visited Moscow.” He demanded Russian President Vladimir Putin fulfill his commitments to protect the Russian Jewish community, and order local officials “not to allow pogroms against the Jews.”
A delegation from the Hamas terrorist organization did indeed arrive in Moscow on Thursday for meetings with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhai Bogdanov, generating controversy both inside and outside of Russia. Musa Abu Marzouk is the head of international relations for Hamas and former head of the Hamas Politburo. Like most of the terror gang’s top leadership, he lives in luxury in Qatar.
“The situation is very difficult in Dagestan. People from the community are afraid, they call, and I do not know what to advise,” Jewish community representative Ovadya Isakov told a media outlet called Podyom.
“Is it worth leaving? Because Russia is not our salvation. There were pogroms in Russia too. It is unclear where to run,” Isakov said.
“Israel expects the Russian law enforcement authorities to safeguard all Israeli citizens and Jews, whoever they may be, and to take robust action against the rioters and against the unbridled incitement being directed at Jews and Israelis,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry said on Sunday.
The Dagestani government promised to restore order while acknowledging the grievances of “Palestinian residents.”
“The government of Dagestan has announced a 24-hour work schedule. All departments’ forces have been mobilized. The forces of all departments have been mobilized. We fully sympathize with the Palestinian residents and understand their feelings. However, there must be no panic. The residents of Dagestan have always been balanced and fair,” said Abdulmuslim Abdulmuslimov, chairman of the government.
The governor of Dagestan, Sergei Melikov, denounced the airport assault as a “stab in the back” for his people, many of whom are fighting for Russia in the invasion of Ukraine.
“There is no honor in hurling abuse at strangers, searching their pockets looking for passports,” he said, noting some of the passengers were “women with children.”
“What happened at our airport is outrageous and should receive the appropriate assessment from law enforcement. This will be done,” he promised.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was among the world leaders who quickly condemned the “appalling” Dagestan airport attack.
“This is not an isolated incident in Makhachkala, but rather part of Russia’s widespread culture of hatred toward other nations, which is propagated by state television, pundits, and authorities,” Zelensky said.
“The Russian foreign minister has made a series of anti-Semitic remarks in the last year. The Russian President also used anti-Semitic slurs. For Russian propaganda talking heads on official television, hate rhetoric is routine,” he charged.
The Kremlin shrugged off the Dagestan attack as the work of foreign saboteurs seeking to distract from Israel’s bombing of Gaza.
“It is well known and obvious that yesterday’s event around the Makhachkala airport is largely the result of outside interference, including information influence from outside,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday, without offering any evidence for his contention.
“Against the backdrop of TV footage showing the horrors of what is happening in the Gaza Strip – the deaths of people, children, old people – it is very easy for enemies to take advantage of and provoke the situation,” he said.
Peskov announced Putin would convene a security meeting on Monday to discuss “attempts by the West to use the events in the Middle East to divide (Russian) society.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry went even further and accused the Ukrainians of somehow orchestrating the Dagestan airport attack, quoting a comment from Melikov that “traitors” based in Ukraine were running the Telegram channel that organized the mob.
“The criminal Kyiv regime played a direct and key role in carrying out the latest destructive act,” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.
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