Israel: Bomb scare triggers panic as US family brings unexploded shell to the airport

Panic ensued at Israel's Ben Gurion Airport after security officials found an unexploded shell packed in the luggage of an American family on their trip home. The passengers took a trip to the Golan Heights and were boarding the flight back to the country. The video widely circulated on social media showed panicked passengers running in the departure hall. The family later told the authorities that during the family's trip, one of the children had detected the unexploded shell at the Golan Heights and had packed it to take home as a ‘souvenir,’ Jewish press reported. 

While the bombshell was detected in the luggage the Israeli police ordered the immediate evacuation of the area and cordoned it off. A bomb squad was summoned to the scene. At least one passenger that tries to flee the area over a baggage carousel in fear of the bomb threat sustained injury and was rushed to the hospital for treatment. After tough interrogation by the Israeli authorities, the American family was let gone by the security staff. The injured was later identified as a 32-year-old man named Uri. 

Golan Heights witnesses hostilities, frequent missile launches

At the Golan Heights, the Syrian army command and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) often intercept surface-to-surface missiles launched from various military locations in the town of Zakia south of Damascus. Due to the near proximity of its confrontations with Israeli aircraft firing missiles at targets in Syria, Syrian anti-air missiles had overshot their objectives multiple times in recent years. Syria has never acknowledged Israel's legal existence, and the two countries have been at odds since Israel's founding in 1948. During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel conquered the Golan Heights from Syria.

As a result of offensives launched into its territory, Israel boasts high levels of aviation security, as also the country has been on high alert after a series of deadly recent attacks after its plans to double the number of settlers residing in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.  Israel has also been vocal in criticising the “dangerous and unprecedented escalation from the Israeli occupation forces in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights and its persistence in settlement policies and grave and methodological violations that rise to the level of war crimes.”