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‘You Aren’t The Only One Who Called:’ London Police Response to Brutal Antisemitic Attack on Hebrew Speakers Under Scrutiny
ILLUSTRATIVE Demonstrators protest in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in London, Oct. 28, 2023. Photo: Reuters/Susannah Ireland
A Jewish woman in London called a police emergency number at least 10 times during a vicious antisemitic assault in the early hours of Sunday morning, only to be told by the operator, “You are not the only one who called tonight.”
The 28-year-old woman, who gave her name as Tehilla in an interview with The Telegraph news outlet about her ordeal, said she and two 25-year old male friends were on their way to a nightclub in London’s busy West End at around 1.30 am when they were accosted by a group of men who overheard them speaking Hebrew.
“They heard us talking and said, ‘Are you Jewish?’ I said ‘yes, I’m Jewish,’ and then they started chanting ‘Free Palestine’, and f— Jews, all this kind of swearing at us,” Tehilla recalled. “So we just tried not to get into trouble, to walk away, but they started following us and then all of a sudden, it started with like two or three guys, and all of a sudden, they called all their friends and 15 to 20 guys started attacking us physically.”
Tehilla’s male friends suffered blows to the head, while she was attacked while attempting to defend them.
She added: “I hurt my leg, they punched me in the neck. I tried to run away and I called the police so many times, at least ten times and I kept crying to them, ‘I’m a girl, there’s a group of guys attacking me and my friends because I’m Jewish, please can you come, I’m scared I’m going to die.’”
Tehilla said that the Metropolitan Police “don’t really care. They kept saying ‘I’m sorry, it takes some time, you are not the only one that called tonight.’”
No-one has been arrested for the assault, which is being treated by police as a hate crime.
“We are investigating this incident as an antisemitic hate crime,” investigating officer Detective Supt. Lucy O’Connor told local news outlets. “I know how upsetting such inexcusable violence is for anyone who was injured or who witnessed the incident, and also for the wider community. I share their concerns.”
O’Connor noted that police officers “arrived at the scene some 28 minutes after they were called. Of course, I wish we could have come to their aid sooner.” She then emphasized: “I can assure Londoners, tackling antisemitic crime is a priority for the Met. There is no place for hate in our city.”
In a separate statement, the Community Security Trust (CST) — a voluntary organization dedicated to communal security — confirmed that “this appalling incident was reported to CST’s 24/7 control centre last night and we are in contact with the victims. We will be raising it with police and will provide ongoing support to the victims.”
Antisemitic attacks rose by an eye-watering 534 percent between the Hamas pogrom of Oct. 7 in southern Israel and the middle of December, according to data collected by the CST, with nearly 2,100 incidents reported.
“These are all instances of anti-Jewish racism, wherein offenders are targeting Jewish people, communities and institutions for their Jewishness,” the CST observed. “In many cases, these hateful comments, threats to life and physical attacks are laced with the rhetoric and iconography of pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel politics.”
The post ‘You Aren’t The Only One Who Called:’ London Police Response to Brutal Antisemitic Attack on Hebrew Speakers Under Scrutiny first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Rights Group Files Lawsuit to Block Trump Deportations of Anti-Israel Protesters
Marco Rubio speaks after he is sworn in as Secretary of State by US Vice President JD Vance at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, Jan. 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) filed a lawsuit challenging as unconstitutional the Trump administration’s actions to deport international students and scholars who protest or express support for Palestinian rights.
The lawsuit, filed on Saturday in the US District Court for the Northern District of New York, seeks a nationwide temporary restraining order to block enforcement of two executive orders signed by US President Donald Trump in the first month of his term.
The lawsuit comes after the detention of a Columbia University student, Mahmoud Khalil, a 30-year-old permanent US resident of Palestinian descent, whose arrest sparked protests this month.
Justice Department lawyers have argued that the US government is seeking Khalil’s removal because Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reasonable grounds to believe his activities or presence in the country could have “serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” Rubio on Friday said the United States will likely revoke visas of more students in the coming days.
Trump vowed to deport activists who took part in protests on US college campuses against Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza following the October 2023 attack by the Palestinian terrorists.
The ADC lawsuit was filed on behalf of two graduate students and a professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who say their activism and support of the Palestinian people “has put them at serious risk of political persecution.”
“This lawsuit is a necessary step to preserve our most fundamental constitutional protections. The First Amendment guarantees the freedom of speech and expression to all persons within the United States, without exception,” said Abed Ayoub, national executive director of the ADC.
Chris Godshall-Bennett, the group’s legal director, said the litigation seeks immediate and long-term relief “to protect international students from any unconstitutional overreach that stifles free expression and deters them from fully engaging in academic and public discourse.”
The lawsuit centers on three Cornell University plaintiffs: a British-Gambian national and PhD student with a student visa; a US citizen PhD student working on plant science; and a US citizen novelist, poet, and professor in the Department of Literatures in English.
The post Rights Group Files Lawsuit to Block Trump Deportations of Anti-Israel Protesters first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Netanyahu Informs Shin Bet Chief to Vote on His Dismissal Next Week
Israel’s Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar speaks at Reichman University in Herzliya on Sunday, September 11, 2022. Photo: Screenshot
i24 News – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet security agency, that he will bring a vote before his government to dismiss him next week.
The post Netanyahu Informs Shin Bet Chief to Vote on His Dismissal Next Week first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Houthis Claim to Attack US Aircraft Carrier, Retaliating for Strikes
Newly recruited fighters who joined a Houthi military force intended to be sent to fight in support of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, march during a parade in Sanaa, Yemen, Dec. 2, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
i24 News – The Houthis claimed on Sunday that they targeted the aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman and other vessels in the northern Red Sea with 18 ballistic and cruise missiles and a drone. Military spokesperson Yahya Saree said that the US-led attacks against the Houthis on Saturday comprised of more than 47 airstrikes on seven governorates, with the death toll expected to rise.
“The Yemeni Armed Forces will not hesitate to target all American warships in the Red Sea and in the Arabian Sea in retaliation to the aggression against our country,” Saree said, vowing the Houthis “will continue to impose a naval blockade on the Israeli enemy and ban its ships in the declared zone of operations until aid and basic needs are delivered to the Gaza Strip.”
The post Houthis Claim to Attack US Aircraft Carrier, Retaliating for Strikes first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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