Manhunt launched for suspect after explosion outside Jewish School in Amsterdam

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 school, which hasn’t been named, in the Buitenveldert district, southern Amsterdam, in the early hours of Saturday morning after the blast.

It caused ‘limited’ damage to the wall outside and there were no injuries reported, City Hall said.

The area is considered the city’s modern Jewish quarter and home to synagogues, religious schools and Jewish restaurants.

Authorities said the person who detonated the explosion was caught on camera and a manhunt has been launched to find them.

Mayor Femke Halsema said in the statement that Amsterdam’s Jewish residents feel ‘fear and anger’ and are increasingly being targeted by antisemitism.

‘This is a cowardly act of aggression against the Jewish community,’ she said.

‘Jewish people in Amsterdam are increasingly confronted with antisemitism. That is unacceptable. A school must be a place where children can learn safely. Amsterdam must be a place 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 entrance of a synagogue in 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” in the Jewish community.

‘The safety 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 building. First in Rotterdam, now in Amsterdam.

‘The safety of Jewish institutions has our full attention. An investigation into the perpetrators is underway.’

The incident is the latest in a rising number of antisemitic attacks that have taken place across the world over the past few years.

A survey from 2024 by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights said antisemitism had persisted in Europe over the years, 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 people are facing increased harassment in real life and online, and they feel they need to hide their identity to protect themselves and their families.

The incidents in Belgium and The Netherlands followed another incident in the US on Thursday, where a motorist rammed a car filled with explosives into the gates of a synagogue in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan.

No-one was injured in the attack and the driver 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 7 October were felt very personally, not least because there were British Jews who were killed in the initial onslaught and people with British connections held hostage,’ he said.

‘And in the war that followed, the devastation in Gaza was very painful to watch. Then there was the vitriol that surrounded the whole conflict, and the massive rise in antisemitism culminating in deadly attacks.’

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