To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to an online
browser that
supports HTML5
video
An explosion which left a Jewish school damaged in Amsterdam has been branded a ‘deliberate attack against the Jewish community’.
Emergency services were called to the college, which hasn’t been named, within the Buitenveldert district, southern Amsterdam, within the early hours of Saturday morning after the blast.
It caused ‘limited’ damage to the wall outside and there have been no injuries reported, City Hall said.
The world is taken into account town’s modern Jewish quarter and residential to synagogues, religious schools and Jewish restaurants.
Authorities said the one who detonated the explosion was caught on camera and a manhunt has been launched to seek out them.
Mayor Femke Halsema said within the statement that Amsterdam’s Jewish residents feel ‘fear and anger’ and are increasingly being targeted by antisemitism.
‘It is a cowardly act of aggression against the Jewish community,’ she said.
‘Jewish people in Amsterdam are increasingly confronted with antisemitism. That’s unacceptable. A college have to be a spot where children can learn safely. Amsterdam have to be a spot where Jews can live safely.’
Security around Jewish schools and other sites has recently been reinforced after an explosion near a synagogue in Liege, Belgium, and a blast that caused a small fire at the doorway of a synagogue within the Dutch port city of Rotterdam on Friday.
Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten called the attack in Amsterdam ‘horrible’ and said it understandably caused “fear and anger” within the Jewish community.
‘The protection of Jewish institutions has our full attention,’ he said in a post on X.
The Dutch justice and security minister, David van Weel, added: ‘Two nights in a row, a cowardly attack with an explosive at a Jewish constructing. First in Rotterdam, now in Amsterdam.
‘The protection of Jewish institutions has our full attention. An investigation into the perpetrators is underway.’
The incident is the newest in a rising variety of antisemitic attacks which have taken place internationally over the past few years.
A survey from 2024 by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights said antisemitism had persevered in Europe over time, but following Hamas’ attack in Israel on October 7, 2023 and Israel’s military attacks in Gaza led to a 400% increase in antisemitic incidents.
It added that Jewish individuals are facing increased harassment in real life and online, they usually feel they should hide their identity to guard themselves and their families.
The incidents in Belgium and The Netherlands followed one other incident within the US on Thursday, where a motorist rammed a automobile full of explosives into the gates of a synagogue in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan.
No-one was injured within the attack and the driving force was shot dead.
Phil Rosenberg, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, told the BBC in December that the conflict in Gaza had hugely impacted Jews in Britain.
‘The attacks of seven October were felt very personally, not least because there have been British Jews who were killed within the initial onslaught and other people with British connections held hostage,’ he said.
‘And within the war that followed, the devastation in Gaza was very painful to observe. Then there was the vitriol that surrounded the entire conflict, and the huge rise in antisemitism culminating in deadly attacks.’
Get in contact with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
MORE: Bondi Beach suspect Naveed Akram appears in court for first time after Hanukkah attack