American Family Starts A Bomb Scare After Bringing ‘souvenir’ Artillery Shell To Israel Airport
When you visit a country, it is nice to bring home a souvenir. It can be a keychain, ref magnets, a t-shirt, or basically anything that you can find at tourist souvenir shops. That’s what responsible travelers do. You never bring home anything that is not allowed at the airport security. Yet that’s exactly what this family did. And to make it worse, what they brought with them caused a bomb scare.
The American family arrived at the airport with an unexploded artillery shell they had discovered in the Golan Heights. They were planning to bring this artillery shell back home as a souvenir. However, they were immediately stopped by security at the airport. And they caused scenes of fear at Israel’s airport as a result of the bomb scare.
As soon as the passengers learned about what the family had, many were seen scrambling for cover, running, and shouting in the departure hall of Ben Gurion International Airport. Many videos have been circulating online showing how chaotic it had been at Israel’s airport due to this mistake.
According to the airport authority, security officers sounded the alert when they discovered the unexploded shell. That’s when people started running and at least one person was injured after trying to run on a conveyor belt. It surely started the airport chaos which could have been avoided when the unexploded artillery shell was not brought into the airport in the first place.
After the shell was safely removed, the airport resumed its normal operations. It probably was just an honest mistake. Nobody would want to go through so much, especially when they are in a foreign country. The family was questioned but was later on released.
Israel conquered the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 war, and the area saw heavy action during that battle and another Arab-Israeli war happened six years later. Areas suspected to contain unexploded munitions are carefully identified and walled off.
In December, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett stated that the country’s aims were to expand settlement activity in the occupied Palestinian territory. With its recognition of Israel’s claim to the Golan Heights, the Trump administration broke with decades of American policy, making the United States the only country in the world to have done so.
Israel claims that it requires the Golan Heights, which offers panoramic vistas of Lebanon and Syria, for its own defense. Syria has always emphasized that any peace agreement must include the return of all of its territories.
Since Israel’s annexation of the strategic plateau in 1981, it has become a prominent tourist destination, including wineries, popular hiking trails, and a modest ski resort in December. It is easy to visit Golan. Tourists have three major alternatives when choosing how to go to the Golan Heights – join a day tour from Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, Tiberias or Nazareth, travel independently through public transportation, or drive a private car to the Golan Heights.
But you have to remember that when you visit foreign countries, it is best to refrain yourself from taking home anything that you can pick up along the road. It is best that you just visit tourist destinations and buy your souvenirs from there. The last thing you want is to cause trouble and spark fear among other people.
