For several hours in Dagestan airport in the Russian city of Makhachkala, on Sunday, October 29, crowds descended on the space in search of "Israelis" and "Jews." The airport became a scene of riots, or "pogrom" in Russian, as participants filmed the scene.

After forcing open the doors of the main terminal to shouts of "Allah Akbar," hundreds of people, some carrying Palestinian flags, stormed the airport. The arrival of a flight from Tel Aviv had been announced in advance, inflaming already overheated spirits in the Muslim-majority republic of nearly 3 million residents, where Salafist influence has grown strongly in recent years.

Groups of rampaging men searched every nook and cranny for their prey in the videos posted online. Others checked vehicles and pedestrians on the outskirts of the airport, demanding to see passports and shouting abuse at anyone who looked "suspicious" – like one Uzbek doctor who was taken to task by the angry crowd. In other videos, a man pointed to a bus and whispered, "They're over there, the Jews, they're all over there."

After tearing down security barriers, the demonstrators invaded the airport's runway. Several aircraft were besieged while passengers and crew were holed up inside. Faced with the passivity of the police, airport employees tried to negotiate with the crowds, proposing that they designate representatives who would be authorized to board the aircraft to check, camera in hand, that no Israeli nationals were present.

Riot police did not intervene until later in the evening. On Monday morning, the authorities announced 60 arrests and the opening of a criminal investigation for public order disturbances. "My Jewish friends are scared, wondering if people are going to turn up at their homes to 'check their passports'," said a Makhachkala activist with a long-standing commitment to inter-community coexistence.

The event was all the more shocking as it came at the climax of a weekend marked throughout the Russian Caucasus by multiple anti-Semitic incidents. In Khasavyurt , also in Dagestan, dozens of men laid siege to a hotel after it was rumored to be hosting "Israeli refugees." In Nalchik, the capital of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic, a community center was burned down, with "death to Jews" written on the building.

In the neighboring Karachay-Cherkessia region, also predominantly Muslim, demonstrators demanded the "expulsion of Jews" from the territory. At the same time, addresses of synagogues and rabbis across southern Russia were broadcast by Telegram channels calling for riots.

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