Dagestan airport: Israel urges Russia to 'maintain safety' after mob protests at landing of plane from Tel Aviv as antisemitic slogans used

Video footage from an airport in Dagestan – a republic of Russia – on social media showed an angry crowd running and reportedly seeking people arriving from Tel Aviv

Israel has called for Russia to “maintain the safety of Israeli citizens and Jews” after a mob stormed an airport in Dagestan amid rumours that a flight was due to land from Tel Aviv.

Hundreds of people on Sunday stormed into the main airport in Russia's Dagestan region and on to the landing field.

Russian news reports said people in the crowd were shouting anti-Semitic slogans and tried to storm the plane belonging to Russian carrier Red Wings.

This picture taken from video footage posted on the Telegram channel @askrasul shows law enforcement personnel marching past as protestors gather at an airport in Makhachkala, Russia, where a mob looking for Israelis and Jews gathered after rumours spread that a flight was arriving from Israel.

Video on social media showed some in the crowd on the landing field waving Palestinian flags, protesters attempting to overturn a police car and others checking the passports of passengers who had arrived in Makhachkala.

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he “expects Russian law enforcement to maintain the safety of all Israeli citizens and Jews and to act with determination against rioters and wild incitement against Jews and Israelis”. “Israel takes a grave view of attempts to harm Israeli citizens and Jews anywhere,” it added.

A spokesman for the Israeli authorities said a “limited number” of Israelis and Jews were isolated and under guard at the airport. “We are working on having them depart on a connection flight to Moscow once conditions allow it,” the spokesman said.

“Israeli security officials and the Israeli ambassador are working with the local security authorities.”

This photograph shows Russian National Guard vans parked at the airport in Makhachkala on Monday.

Russia's aviation agency Rosaviatsia said flights from Israel to the North Caucasus would be "temporarily redirected to other cities". Around 20 people are believed to have been injured in the riot.

One passenger, who said he was on the flight from Tel Aviv, told local media he was stopped by the crowd. He said he was let go after rioters told him "we are not touching non-Jews today”.

A local Telegram channel had published posts encouraging people to gather at the airport at the time of the flight's arrival. It told participants to search for every Jewish person there.

Russia’s state-run RT outlet reported the incident came a day after a group stormed a hotel in the Dagestani city of Khasavyurt in an attempt to harm “Jewish refugees” believed to be staying there.

Dagestan is a mainly Muslim Russian republic in the North Caucasus. Of its population of around 3.1 million people, there are believed to be 300 to 400 Jewish families.

The anti-Semitic violence of the Russian pogroms, which began in the 1880s, drove millions of Jews out of the Russian empire.

Although anti-Semitism in the country has generally decreased in more recent times, there have still been some violent incidents against the Jewish population in Russia. In 2006, a neo-Nazi stabbed nine people at the Bolshaya Bronnaya Synagogue, while in January 2005, a group of 15 Duma members demanded that Judaism and Jewish organizations be banned from Russia.

Moscow’s chief Rabbi, Pinchas Goldschmidt, left Russia after he refused a request from state officials to publicly support the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Earlier this year, he was deemed to be a “foreign agent” by Russian authorities.