An explosion damaged a Jewish school in Amsterdam in what the city’s mayor described as “a deliberate attack against the Jewish community.”
The explosion early Saturday in a residential neighborhood in the city’s south caused limited damage, Mayor Femke Halsema said in a news release, as police and firefighters rushed to the scene.
No injuries were reported. Police had CCTV footage of a person placing the explosive device, Halsema said.
Security at synagogues and Jewish institutions in the Dutch capital had already been stepped up after an overnight arson attack at a synagogue in central Rotterdam on Friday.
Later that day, police arrested three men, aged between 18 and 19, and a 17-year-old boy. The agents stopped a car that was driving suspiciously near another synagogue and the driver’s description matched that of one of the perpetrators of the attack on the synagogue.
Police said they were launching a “full-scale investigation into this serious incident” and called for witnesses to come forward. “It is not yet clear whether the suspects were planning to detonate an explosive or also set fire to another synagogue,” a police spokesman said in a statement. No potential motive was given for the arrests.
An unverified video showing an explosion near a building resembling the targeted synagogue circulated on social media on Friday, and police said they were examining it as part of their investigation.
In neighboring Belgium, an explosion sparked a fire at a synagogue in Liège on Monday.
Halsema said of the school attack: “This is a cowardly act of aggression against the Jewish community.
The Jewish people of Amsterdam are increasingly facing anti-Semitism. “This is unacceptable.”
Concerns about possible attacks on Jewish communities around the world have increased since the US and Israeli attacks on Iran and Tehran’s response.
