A mob looking for Israelis and Jews overran an airport in Russia’s Caucasus republic of Dagestan on Sunday, after rumours spread that a flight was arriving from Israel.

In ?? Makhachkala, locals storm the airport after a plane from Tel-Aviv arrives. They check passports, looking for Israelis. The police don’t interfere. #Israel #IsraelPalestine pic.twitter.com/2mnTBiq1kK

— olexander scherba?? (@olex_scherba) October 29, 2023

The violence in the mostly Muslim region, which erupted amid the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, prompted Israel to call on Russia to protect its citizens.

Dozens of protesters, many of them chanting “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest) broke through doors and barriers, with some running onto the runway and others, according to videos posted on social media, and Russia’s RT and Izvestia media.

AFP could not immediately verify the videos.

Shortly afterwards, Russia’s aviation agency Rossavitsia announced that it had closed the airport to incoming and outgoing flights and that the security forces had arrived on site.

“The situation is under control, law enforcement is working at the scene,” said a statement from the government of Russia’s Dagestan Republic posted on Telegram.

Rossavitsia announced later on Sunday that the airport had been “freed” from the mob and would remain closed until November 6.

Earlier several local Telegram channels showed photos and videos of dozens of men waiting outside the airport to stop cars, with some of them attempting to break down security barriers.

One protester could be seen in the videos holding a sign reading “Child killers have no place in Dagestan”.

Other videos showed a crowd inside an airport terminal trying to break down doors as staff members tried to deter them.

Hamas stormed across the Gaza border on October 7 in the deadliest attack in Israel’s history, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 230 others, according to Israeli officials.

In relation, Israel has relentlessly bombed the coastal strip, killing more than 8,000 people, half of them children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

Calls for calm

A statement Sunday evening from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said: “Israel expects the Russian authorities to protect all Israeli citizens and all Jews, and to act decisively against the rioters and against incitement to violence against Jews and Israelis.”

Earlier Sunday, Akhmed Dudayev, the minister of information in Dagestan’s neighbour Chechnya, warned on Telegram against “provocations” and called for calm in the face of rising tensions in the Caucasus.

The Dagestan government posted on Telegram telling the mob “not to continue illegal acts and not to interfere with the work of airport employees”. 

The statement added: “It is not easy for each of us to stand and watch the inhumane massacre of a civilian population — the Palestinian people.

“At the same time, we urge residents of the republic not to succumb to provocations of destructive groups and not to create panic in society.”

The Flightradar website, indicated that a Red Wings flight out of Tel Aviv had landed at Makhachkala at 7:00 pm (1600 GMT).

The independent Russian media outlet Sota said it was a transiting flight that had been due to take off again for Moscow two hours later.

Chechnya and Dagestan are two volatile republics in the Russian Caucasus, both of which have mainly Muslim populations.

Earlier on Sunday, the RIA Novosti news agency reported that a Jewish centre in another North Caucasus republic — Kabardino-Balkaria — had been set on fire in the city of Nalchik. 

Israel must protect innocent Gaza residents by distinguishing between Hamas militants and civilians, the White House warned Sunday as President Joe Biden promised a significant increase in aid to the Palestinian territory.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been urged to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza. Health officials in that Hamas-run territory say more than 8,000 people — half of them children — have already died in three weeks of air strikes conducted in retaliation for the deadly Hamas attacks into Israel on October 7.

Biden discussed the protection of civilian lives in a phone call Sunday with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, in which the two leaders “committed to the significant acceleration and increase of assistance flowing into Gaza beginning today and then continuously,” according to a readout from the White House.

The call came as the Biden administration emphasized the need to protect civilian lives amid the ongoing conflict.

“The IDF, the Israeli government, should be taking every possible means available to them to distinguish between Hamas — terrorists, who are legitimate military targets — and civilians, who are not,” US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on CNN talk show “State of the Union.”

Biden delivered a message to Netanyahu himself Sunday when the two spoke on a call to discuss developments in Gaza.

During the conversation, Biden “underscored the need to immediately and significantly increase the flow of humanitarian assistance to meet the needs of civilians in Gaza,” according to a readout of the conversation from the White House.

“The president reiterated that Israel has every right and responsibility to defend its citizens from terrorism and underscored the need to do so in a manner consistent with international humanitarian law that prioritizes the protection of civilians,” the readout said.

But Sullivan emphasized on CNN that “we do believe that thousands of Palestinian civilians have been killed in this bombardment, and every single one of those deaths is a tragedy.”

Speaking on ABC’s “This Week” as he made a round of Sunday talk shows, Sullivan added that Hamas, a “brutal terrorist organization,” is “hiding behind the civilian population.”

Hamas has been using civilians as “human shields” and putting rockets and other “terrorist infrastructure” in civilian areas, he said.

“But it doesn’t lessen their (Israel’s) responsibility under international humanitarian law and the laws of war to do all in their power to protect the civilian population.”

The national security advisor also said that US officials are working to help secure the release of more than 220 hostages being held in Gaza by Hamas, as well as to help the hundreds of Palestinian Americans stuck in Gaza.

“Many of them are still there, still waiting to get out, and we are working actively to try to make that happen,” Sullivan told CBS show “Face the Nation.”

But he said that while neighbouring Egypt and Israel are prepared to let Americans and other foreign nationals leave Gaza, “Hamas is preventing their departure.”

The latest violence began on October 7 when Hamas militants stormed across the Gaza border in the deadliest attack in Israel’s history, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli officials.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan, gunning for a third term, has a request for Bollywood: he wants them to redo the superhit ‘Amar Akbar Anthony’.

Mr Khan, born in London in 1970 to parents who had arrived from Pakistan, explains why he believes that this is the right moment for such a request from a city like London which isn’t unfamiliar to Bollywood.

“I have a Proposal to Bollywood. Please redo Amar Akbar Anthony in the UK because we have a Christian king (Ling Charles III), a Muslim mayor (he himself) and a Hindu Prime Minister (Rishi Sunak),” said Mr Khan, who grew up in public housing with his six brothers and sister in Tooting, an ethnically diverse residential area in the south of the city.

“I’d get to play Amitabh Bachchan’s part,” the Mayor said with a chuckle.

The movie featured Vinod Khanna (a Hindu police officer), Rishi Kapoor (a Muslim qawwali singer) and Amitabh Bachchan (Christian liquor seller). 

“London is the number one place for Bollywood films to be filmed and for people to come and invest in. I’m looking forward to Indians coming here as students, as tourists, as investors, and for locations for Bollywood movies,” said Mr Khan, who joined the Labour Party aged 15.

Mr Khan regularly recalls how his father drove London’s famous red buses, his mother was a seamstress and one of his brothers is a motor mechanic.

“One of the reasons why London is the greatest city in the world is because Indians have chosen to make it their home. These are Londoners who have gone on to become doctors, business people, politicians, chemists, pharmacists, scientists, journalists and so forth. Our diversity is a strength. London is a place where you can fulfil your potential. I call it the London Promise,” said Mr Khan, who made a name for himself as a vocal critic of Brexit. 

In 2005 he gave up his legal career on becoming the member of parliament for Tooting, where he still lives with his lawyer wife Saadiya and their two daughters.