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Amsterdam Bans Protests After ‘Antisemitic Squads’ Attack Israeli Soccer Fans
Israeli football supporters and Dutch youth clash near Amsterdam Central station, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, November 8, 2024, in this still image obtained from a social media video. Photo: X/iAnnet/via REUTERS
Amsterdam banned demonstrations for three days from Friday after overnight attacks on Israeli soccer supporters by what the mayor called “antisemitic hit-and-run squads,” and Israel sent planes to the Netherlands to fly fans home.
Mayor Femke Halsema said Maccabi Tel Aviv fans had been “attacked, abused and pelted with fireworks” around the city, and that riot police intervened to protect them and escort them to hotels. At least five people were treated in hospital.
Videos on social media showed riot police in action, with some attackers shouting anti-Israeli slurs. Footage also showed Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters chanting anti-Arab slogans before Thursday evening’s match.
“We saw a lot of demonstrations, a lot of people running. It was really, really terrifying,” said Joni Pogrebetsy, an Israeli soccer fan in Amsterdam for the match.
Antisemitic incidents have surged in the Netherlands since Israel launched its operation in Gaza after the attacks on Israel by Hamas terrorists in October last year, with many Jewish organizations and schools reporting threats and hate mail.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government sent planes to the Netherlands to bring fans home, while foreign minister Gideon Saar flew to Amsterdam for impromptu meetings with the Dutch government and far-right leader Geert Wilders.
Amsterdam banned demonstrations through the weekend and gave police emergency stop-and-search powers in response to the unrest, which exposed deep anger over the Gaza-Israel conflict.
In Washington, US President Biden condemned the attacks as “despicable” and said they “echo dark moments in history when Jews were persecuted.” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was shocked by the violence in Amsterdam, a U.N. spokesperson said.
SECURITY TIGHTENED
Mayor Halsema said police had been taken by surprise after security services failed to flag the match against Ajax Amsterdam, traditionally identified as a Jewish club, as high-risk.
“Antisemitic hit-and-run squads” had managed to evade a force of around 200 officers, she said.
Security was tightened in the city, where a service was planned at a Jewish monument on Saturday to remember Kristallnacht, the Nazi pogrom against Jews across Germany on Nov. 9-10, 1938.
One video verified by Reuters showed a group of men running near Amsterdam central station, chasing and assaulting other men as police sirens sounded.
Another verified video showed Maccabi fans setting off flares and chanting “Ole, ole, let the IDF win, we will f*** the Arabs,” referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said he was “horrified by the antisemitic attacks on Israeli citizens” and had assured Netanyahu by phone that “the perpetrators will be identified and prosecuted.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog spoke with Dutch King Willem-Alexander, who he said had “expressed deep horror and shock.”
Herzog quoted the king as saying the Netherlands had failed its Jewish community during World War Two – under Nazi occupation and persecution – and again on Thursday night.
Wilders, head of the largest party in the government, said he was “ashamed that this can happen in the Netherlands.” In a post on X, he blamed “criminal Muslims” and said they should be deported.
Police said there had been incidents before the game, for which 3,000 Maccabi supporters traveled to Amsterdam.
ISRAEL SAYS VIOLENCE RECALLS EUROPEAN POGROMS
The Israeli embassy in The Hague said mobs had chanted anti-Israel slogans and shared videos of their violence on social media, “kicking, beating, even running over Israeli citizens.”
“On the eve of Kristallnacht — when Jews in Nazi Germany faced brutal attacks — it is horrifying to witness antisemitic violence on the streets of Europe once again,” it said.
Police said 62 suspects had been detained after the game as anti-Israel demonstrators tried to reach the Johan Cruyff Arena, even though the city had forbidden a protest there. Ten remained in custody on Friday.
They said fans had left the stadium without incident after the Europa League match, which Ajax won 5-0, but that clashes erupted overnight in the city center.
Herzog was among senior Israeli politicians who said the violence recalled the attack on Israel by Hamas terrorists last year as well as attacks on European Jews in the pogroms of previous centuries.
“We see with horror this morning, the shocking images and videos that since October 7th, we had hoped never to see again: an antisemitic pogrom currently taking place against Maccabi Tel Aviv fans and Israeli citizens in the heart of Amsterdam,” he wrote on X.
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Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
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Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
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Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
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