After reports spread that a plane coming from Israel had landed, dozens of demonstrators stormed Makhachkala Airport on Sunday evening in the capital of the Russian republic of Dagestan, which has a Muslim majority in the Caucasus.

The demonstrators entered the passenger building, reached the airport runway, and crossed the barriers with the aim of searching departing cars in search of Israeli passengers, according to video clips broadcast by the Russian “Izvestia” agency and the “RT” channel and circulated on social media.

The Russian Aviation Agency announced that “following the raid by unidentified persons into the navigation area at Makhachkala Airport, the decision was taken to temporarily close it to arrival and take-off flights,” confirming that security forces had arrived at the location.

Thousands in the streets of Madrid

In the same context, thousands demonstrated in the streets of Madrid on Sunday in solidarity with the Palestinians, and some of them carried flags or banners and demanded an immediate ceasefire in the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, chanting slogans of “Freedom for Palestine” as the crowds walked through the closed streets of the Spanish capital.

The demonstration included about 35,000 people, according to the central government delegation to Madrid, making it one of the largest marches in solidarity with the Palestinians in Spain since the attack launched by Hamas on Israel earlier this month.

More than 8,000 people were killed in the Gaza Strip, half of them children, according to the latest toll announced by the Palestinian Ministry of Health, while 1,400 people were killed in Israel, most of them civilians who fell on the first day of the Hamas attack, according to the Israeli authorities, who reported that the movement’s fighters were also detained. About 230 people are hostage.

Nisreen Mashal, a 45-year-old teacher, said that she participated in the demonstration because her family lives in Gaza and the West Bank, adding in an interview with Agence France-Presse: “I am very worried about my family because I have not been able to talk to them for almost two days. Two days without receiving any message from them.”

Demands for peace

The demonstrators raised banners reading: “Just peace, fire does not lie, and do not ignore Palestinian suffering.” A number of people waved Palestinian flags.

Emilio Gonzalez, a 50-year-old IT consultant, expressed his solidarity with “the Palestinian people in their suffering,” adding: “We hope that they will be able to achieve their ultimate goal that they have always wanted, which is to have their own state.”

Among the participants is the current Minister of Labor, Yolanda Diaz, leader of the radical left-wing Somar coalition, who said that “everyone is demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza,” stressing that “this call is being made from all over the world.”

Thousands of demonstrators in support of the Palestinians also participated in another march on Sunday in the coastal city of Valencia in eastern Spain.

A protest demonstration was organized in Athens on Sunday, in which more than five thousand people participated, the day after protests were held in Britain, France, Switzerland, and New York.