American tourists caused a bomb scare at Israel's largest international airport yesterday when they tried to bring an unexploded artillery shell through a security checkpoint.
A member of the family had reportedly picked up the explosive as a souvenir on a visit to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, airport officials told The Times of Israel. The region was pummeled by heavy bombings and artillery fire during the Six-Day War with Syria in 1967.
Ben Gurion airport, outside Tel Aviv, has some of the highest levels of security in the world. All cars, taxis, buses and trucks go through a preliminary security checkpoint before entering the airport compound. Once inside, travelers go through additional screening.
Yesterday, at a security checkpoint, the American family showed the souvenir shell to authorities, who promptly announced an evacuation.
Video footage posted to social media shows a chaotic scene, with some travelers dropping to the ground and others running through the airport in panic. The Israel Airports Authority told Israeli media that one man was hospitalized with injuries after he tried to climb over a baggage carousel.
Israeli journalist Itay Blumental tweeted: “Although not my beat anymore, it is impossible to ignore the hallucinatory sights at Ben Gurion Airport tonight: An American family traveling in the Golan Heights collected a fallen shell and took it with them in a suitcase.”
The American family was reportedly interrogated briefly by security and cleared to board their flight.
The U.S. State Department has not immediately responded to a request for confirmation that the family has returned to the U.S.
Remnants from wars that took place decades or even centuries ago can still contain live explosives. Just last month, a group of archaeologists stumbled upon an intact Civil War bomb at Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield in Georgia.
In the United States, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) regularly confiscates toy, replica and other weapons found in passenger luggage, including those described as inert smoke grenades or souvenir replica land mines. TSA officers found an inert but real Civil War Parrott shell in passenger belongings at Denver International Airport on August 2019.
In April 2019, the Albuquerque International Sunport checked baggage room was evacuated for approximately 15 minutes after TSA officers discovered an inert mortar and launcher.
In July 2019, TSA officers at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport detected an air-to-ground missile tube in a man’s checked luggage. The passenger said he was an active military personnel traveling home from Kuwait and he wanted to keep the missile launcher as a souvenir.
