Two Jewish men were stabbed in broad daylight in the north London area of Golders Green on Wednesday, in an attack police are investigating as a suspected antisemitic assault after weeks of violence targeting Jewish sites in the British capital.

A 45-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after the attack, which left two men, one in his 70s and one in his 30s, hospitalized in stable condition. Counter-terrorism officers are leading the investigation and examining whether the incident is linked to a recent string of attacks on Jewish institutions, police said. 

Moments alleged knife attacker is arrested by police and members of the public after stabbing two British Jews in Golders Green. pic.twitter.com/25G0OYwbZD

— Elad Simchayoff (@Elad_Si) April 29, 2026

Shomrim, the Jewish neighborhood watch group, said a man armed with a knife had been seen running through the area and “attempting to stab Jewish members of the public.” Police used a taser during the arrest, and no officers were injured, according to police and local reports. 

Sacha Roytman Dratwa, CEO of the Combat Antisemitism Movement, compared the attacks, carried out by perpetrators who are “openly looking for Jewish bloodshed,” to those characterizing past Palestinian uprisings in Israel. 

“It seems like there is nothing short of an intifada against British Jews,” Roytman Dratwa told The Algemeiner.

The term “intifada,” Arabic for uprising, refers to two periods (the first beginning in 1987 and the second in 2000) when Palestinian terrorists ramped up violence targeting Israelis that included suicide bombings, shootings, and stabbings. In recent years, many anti-Israel activists have popularized the slogan “globalize the intifada,” which critics argue promotes attacks on Jews worldwide.

Roytman Dratwa added that the violence was being driven by open incitement and demanded a far stronger response from authorities.

“The British authorities have to act now; words are not enough. Action is needed at every level, from policing, legislation, education and the dismantling of the incitement networks,” he said.

“Enough has to mean enough, and we need to see results because this means an end to the bloodshed,” Roytman Dratwa added. “The UK has to stop this intifada on its own soil.”

A little-known militant group calling itself Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya, or HAYI, said one of its operatives carried out Wednesday’s attack, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist activity online. Analysts say the organization is linked to Iran and has previously taken responsibility for antisemitic incidents in the UK and parts of Europe.

In a statement circulated online, the group said, “Zionists were targeted by our lone wolves in the Golders Green area of London,” SITE reported.

Jewish residents in north London described the stabbing as shocking but not unexpected, saying weeks of attacks had pointed toward the risk of serious violence.

Keren, who lives near the scene of the attack, said the latest assault was “very worrying.”

“The other incidents did not result in any casualties, but it was clear that they would lead to serious physical attacks,” she said, adding that she hoped the escalation would push authorities to “actually do something constructive to stop the violence.”

Golders Green, long one of the most visible centers of Jewish life in London, has been on edge after a series of attacks. Last month, arsonists set fire to four ambulances belonging to the Jewish Hatzola organization in the area. Weeks later, a synagogue and the former premises of a Jewish charity in north London were also targeted. Four people were charged over the ambulance attack, according to police and local reports. 

Moran, an Israeli who moved to London with her British husband and three children after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack because she was afraid of the security situation in Israel, said the recent attacks had left her “very frightened” again, this time in the place she had chosen as safer. 

“What happened in Golders Green is not isolated,” she said, describing an incident at her children’s Jewish school in nearby Finchley last Friday, when a man filmed the building and then shouted abuse after a guard approached him.

“He shouted, ‘F**k the Jews,’ ‘I hate you,’ and ‘I don’t care about the Jews,’” Moran told The Algemeiner. The school, she added, is now urgently trying to raise money to increase security.

“It’s very ironic. I ran away from Israel because of the war, and in the end, I come here, and this is happening at my children’s school,” she said.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called Wednesday’s stabbing an “utterly appalling” antisemitic attack.  

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said the city’s Jewish community had faced “a series of shocking antisemitic attacks” and said there could be no place for antisemitism in society. 

Nancy, a Jewish Londoner, also used the attack to sharply criticize the government, saying it had failed to prevent the escalation.

“It’s very scary here right now, and our government is useless,” she told The Algemeiner.  

The attack, she said, was not just an assault on two individuals but an “assault on an entire community’s right to exist freely in their own city.”

“When Jewish people can’t walk down a road in broad daylight without fearing for their lives, something has gone deeply, shamefully wrong in our society. We deserve to feel safe on the streets of London, and right now we do not,” she added. 

The Combat Antisemitism Movement urged the British government to step up security for Jewish communities, move quickly to prosecute those responsible, and address what it described as the ideological drivers behind the attacks.

As intensifying US pressure squeezes the Iranian energy sector, Iran’s oil lifeline is fraying — exports are sliding, storage is nearing capacity, and mounting economic strain is fueling the risk of renewed internal unrest that could further test the regime’s grip on power.

According to a newly released report from commodity analytics firm Kpler, Iran’s oil exports fell sharply after a US naval blockade on Iranian ports took hold in mid-April, dropping from an average of just over 2 million barrels per day earlier this month and 1.85 million in March to only five tracked cargoes and roughly 567,000 barrels per day in the past two weeks.

Even with Iran’s national oil company already cutting output to avoid dangerous bottlenecks as storage approaches capacity limits, the country is running out of space quickly, with Kpler estimating remaining storage could be exhausted within 12 to 22 days.

Despite Iranian officials claiming that 31 tankers have escaped the blockade zone, there is no evidence of any successful transits, with vessels reportedly passing through the Strait of Hormuz only to be stopped short of the US blockade further south between the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea.

The US blockade has prevented the regime from exporting energy through the Strait of Hormuz — a critical global energy chokepoint through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil supply passes.

Amid a collapse in exports of more than 70 percent, the Iranian government has been forced to start cutting production, signaling a deepening economic crisis. Now the regime faces a critical choice between shutting wells and risking long-term damage to critical fields.

Sudden and prolonged shutdowns at oil production plants can cause lasting damage to reservoirs by disrupting pressure systems and flow dynamics, making it increasingly difficult — and in some cases impossible — to restart operations and restore production levels to their previous capacity, often costing millions to reverse.

According to Homayoun Falakshahi, head of Kpler’s crude oil analysis team, Iran’s oil sector has long suffered from underinvestment and poor reservoir management, resulting in an average recovery rate of just 25 percent. This means only about a quarter of the oil in a field can typically be extracted before production must be halted, and once wells are shut, restarting them makes it harder and less efficient to recover what remains.

Even though Kpler’s report estimates Tehran may not feel the full revenue hit for another three to four months due to payment delays and pre-existing sales flows, the regime is expected to face a heavy blow, with losses potentially reaching $200–250 million per day.

In an effort to prevent a wider infrastructure breakdown and avoid sharper production slowdowns, Iran is turning to improvised oil storage and alternative export routes.

Specifically, the regime is reportedly turning to disused “junk storage” sites, makeshift containers, floating storage on vessels, and even rail shipments of crude to China as export bottlenecks continue to build.

After repeated efforts to bring Iran back to the negotiating table to discuss its nuclear and missile programs and support for terrorism, the Trump administration escalated pressure on the Islamist regime earlier this month by imposing a naval blockade against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas, aiming to reach a deal that would bring an end to the conflict.

Trump told aides this week to prepare for an extended blockade of Iran until the regime agrees to a favorable deal, according to multiple reports.

Since the start of the war with joint US-Israeli strikes earlier this year, Iran has used control over the Strait of Hormuz as a major source of leverage, militarizing the waterway and sharply restricting maritime traffic through one of the world’s most critical shipping corridors. However, the US blockade as taken away much of that leverage, with the calculus that the regime can only hold out for so long as Iran faces total economic collapse.

Adding to an already crippling economy, Iran’s national rial currency hit a record low Wednesday of 1.8 million to the dollar. The fall is expected to trigger further fuel inflation.

Meanwhile, Iran’s foreign trade has also collapsed sharply during the first month of the conflict, deepening the country’s isolation from global markets.

Official customs data shows non-oil trade dropped to just $6.4 billion last month, a 30 percent decline from the previous month and 50 percent lower than a year earlier, before the war, Iran International reported.

As the country’s industrial base — a target of US-Israeli strikes before the ceasefire took effect earlier this month — comes under strain, the Iranian government has been forced to halt petrochemical and steel exports, sectors that account for more than a third of its non-oil revenue.

On Monday, the Iran Trade Promotion Organization ordered a suspension of steel slab and sheet exports until May 30, putting at risk industries that generate up to $20 billion annually.

With domestic tensions rising and the internal economic crisis worsening, Iranian officials are increasingly wary that renewed protests could erupt in the coming days, further destabilizing an already volatile situation.

Iran International reported that, this week, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council held an emergency meeting amid growing concern over a possible resurgence of protests, warning of renewed unrest following the nationwide anti-government demonstrations earlier this year, which security forces violently crushed, leaving tens of thousands of demonstrators tortured, imprisoned, or killed.

Officials now reportedly warn that worsening economic hardship, driven by inflation, rising unemployment, and damage to key industries such as petrochemicals and steel, could ignite the next wave of unrest.

According to Israeli intelligence assessments, widespread damage to Iran’s petrochemical and defense sectors has already wiped out an estimated 100,000 jobs.

Iranian security officials estimate that nationwide internet shutdowns have also left around 20 percent of online-dependent workers unemployed, warning that up to two million more private-sector jobs could be lost by the end of spring.

Washington is working on establishing a system “where vetted units within the Lebanese Armed Forces [LAF] have the training, the equipment, and the capability to go after elements of Hezbollah and dismantle them,” according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose statement echoed growing frustration in Congress that Beirut should reform its military, or lose American aid.

On Capitol Hill, frustrated Senate powerhouses Roger Wicker (R-MS), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Jim Risch (R-ID), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, seem to have lost all patience with the LAF. After funneling more than $3 billion in US taxpayer dollars into the force since 2004, the returns have been virtually zero.

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who once threw the LAF commander out of his office for refusing to call Hezbollah a terrorist organization, is now issuing a blunt ultimatum: not one more American cent unless the LAF undergoes genuine, verifiable, and immediate reform.

That reform must begin right now with the LAF enforcing the Lebanese cabinet’s March 2 resolution ordering the military to disband Hezbollah and prohibit all its military activities.

Five days after that vote, however, LAF Commander Rudolph Haykal met with his top generals and declared that “preventing civil war” was their priority, code for refusing to disarm Hezbollah. The LAF has gone rogue, openly defying the elected civilian government it is sworn to obey. 

Under Haykal, the LAF is not worth another dollar of American money. Graham is correct: real reform starts with firing Haykal and purging the senior ranks. Most top officers are compromised by or aligned with Hezbollah. They must be replaced by patriotic ones who put Lebanon first.

But leadership change is only the start. Washington must demand two non-negotiable structural reforms before releasing another dime: a complete reorientation of the LAF’s military doctrine and a rigorous, fully independent audit of its finances and operations.

The Lebanese Army was founded in 1946, with a doctrine that matched the vision of the country’s founders: a sovereign, predominantly Christian nation in a hostile Sunni Arab Levant.

Lebanon’s Christians deliberately carved out a distinct identity, distancing the country from the Arab-Islamic narrative and even emphasizing its European cultural roots.

For decades, the LAF performed its core mission with honor, defending Lebanon’s independence and neutrality against neighbors determined to absorb it into Greater Syria or a pan-Arab or Islamic superstate. Until 1991, every battle it fought served Lebanese sovereignty.

That mission was betrayed in 1991. Eager to reshape the post-Cold War Middle East, the United States rewarded Syrian dictator Hafez al-Assad for joining the Gulf War coalition by handing him control of Lebanon.

Assad wasted no time. He purged patriotic officers and gutted the army’s doctrine. The LAF was no longer a defender of Lebanese independence. It became a tool for radical Arab “causes” — above all, an obsessive, unrelenting hostility toward Israel, which was recast from a peaceful neighbor into an existential enemy. 

Worse, the new doctrine cynically embraced Hezbollah as a legitimate “popular resistance” group supposedly sanctioned by international law — a grotesque lie, especially after Israel’s unilateral, UN-certified withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000.

This situation lasted far too long. Hezbollah’s decision on October 8, 2023, to attack Israel “in support of Gaza” finally changed the equation. Israel’s devastating 2024 campaign weakened the militia’s leadership, including the elimination of Hassan Nasrallah.

With Hezbollah gravely weakened, Lebanon’s parliament elected President Joseph Aoun in December 2024 and quickly approved Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s cabinet, both openly committed to disarming the Iranian proxy. Yet cabinet resolutions are meaningless if the LAF refuses to obey the government it is supposed to serve.

The army’s excuses for inaction are unconvincing.

It claims Shia soldiers would mutiny and defect. That’s false. Hezbollah’s fighters are almost exclusively Shia, and the militia offers far better pay and benefits than the cash-strapped LAF. Many military-age Shia men have already joined the proxy, leaving the regular army disproportionately Sunni and Christian. There simply aren’t enough Shia left in the ranks to cause a serious split.

Surveys repeatedly show that at least one in four Lebanese Shia oppose Hezbollah’s armament. Those who choose the national army over the militia’s lavish incentives are among the most patriotic, and the least likely to follow Hezbollah’s orders.

Hezbollah’s real grip on the LAF comes through corruption, not numbers. The militia has co-opted dozens of non-Shia senior officers by securing their promotions and protecting their graft. Corruption is rampant. Lebanon ranks 153rd on Transparency International’s corruption index. Applicants to the military academy routinely pay bribes of at least $30,000 just to get in, according to word on the street.

Before any more US money flows, the LAF must submit to a thorough, independent international audit.

The path is clear and uncompromising. Replace Haykal and his compromised lieutenants. Restore a doctrine centered solely on defending Lebanese sovereignty and neutrality. Conduct a full independent audit. 

Only then should America resume, and dramatically increase, its aid to build a professional, sovereign, and accountable Lebanese national army. A reformed LAF would finally be worth supporting. The current version is not.

Hussain Abdul-Hussain is a research fellow at The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD).