Russia Airport Mob Hunting Jewish Passengers—What We Know

The head of Russia's southern Dagestan region, Sergei Melikov, has condemned riots which involved hundreds of people storming the region's main airport, brandishing Palestinian flags and reportedly hunting for Israeli passengers from a flight that had landed from Tel Aviv earlier on Sunday.

Videos circulating on social media showed the angry rioters rushing onto the landing field at the airport in Makhachkala, the capital of the mainly Muslim republic in the north Caucasus, late Sunday. Some members of the large mob climbed onto the roof and wings of the aircraft, which belongs to Russian carrier Red Wings.

Police detained some 60 rioters at the airport, which has since been closed by authorities. By Monday morning, local police said "more than 150 active riot participants" had been identified. According to the Baza Telegram channel, which is linked to Russia's security services, about 1,500 people took part in the incident.

Some participants of the mob held posters with the words, "Child killers have no place in Dagestan" and "We are against Jewish refugees," Baza reported.

Another video showed a crowd of people at Makhachkala airport surrounding a man who they believed to be Jewish, reportedly checking his passport. The man explained that he is Uzbek. The former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan is also a predominantly Muslim country.

It isn't yet clear who organized the riots, but the independent Russian news outlet MediaZona reported that the riot was sparked by calls on Telegram channels on Sunday to block a plane that was purportedly carrying refugees from Israel, arriving from Tel Aviv.

Dagestan's Ministry of Health said that more than 20 people were injured in the incident, including police officers and civilians, with two in critical condition.

Melikov called the riots an "attempt to destabilize the situation" in the republic, and claimed the unrest was supervised from abroad, including through "pro-Ukrainian Telegram channels."

"Attempts to destabilize the situation in Dagestan, including using prohibited methods associated with inflaming ethnic hatred and interfaith problems, are being carried out by our enemies, opponents of our country," he said.

Plans to "catch" the passengers of the incoming Tel Aviv flight had been shared on Telegram since Sunday, with screenshots of the flight schedule, according to New York Times visual investigations reporter Aric Toler.

"The same large channel (Utro Dagestan/Morning Dagestan) organizing the airport riot today was previously boosting the efforts to search local hotels for Jews. They are also pressuring local real estate agencies to ban taking on Jewish tenants," he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky commented on the "appalling videos from Makhachkala, Russia, where an angry mob broke into the airport searching for Israeli citizens on the flight from Tel Aviv."

"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," said Zelensky on his X account, accusing both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of making antisemitic remarks recently.

"For Russian propaganda talking heads on official television, hate rhetoric is routine. Even the most recent Middle East escalation prompted antisemitic statements from Russian ideologists.

"Russian antisemitism and hatred toward other nations are systemic and deeply rooted. Hatred is what drives aggression and terror. We must all work together to oppose hatred," Zelensky wrote.

Newsweek has contacted the Ukrainian and Russian Foreign Ministries for comment via email.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in a statement on Sunday night that Israel "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."

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