An explosion struck overnight at a Jewish school in Amsterdam in what the city’s mayor called a “targeted attack against the Jewish community.”
The blast hit the outer wall of the school, located in Buitenveldert, considered the city’s modern Jewish quarter and home to synagogues, religious schools and Jewish restaurants.
Police have obtained images of the person who allegedly detonated the bomb, the City of Amsterdam told CNN in a statement.
“This is a cowardly act of aggression towards the Jewish community,” Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema said.
Security in Amsterdam had been heightened following antisemitic incidents in Rotterdam and Liège in neighboring Belgium earlier the same week, the statement said.
The incident appears to be part of a recent wave of antisemitic violence in Europe amid the ongoing US-Israeli conflict with Iran.
On Friday, an explosion at the Dutch port city of Rotterdam, the Netherlands’ second largest city, sparked a fire at the entrance of a synagogue.
Four teenage boys have been arrested following the overnight arson attack, Rotterdam police said in a statement.
Police said that that blaze was caused by an explosive device that detonated at the synagogue. The fire broke out for a short time before burning out by itself, police said, adding that no one was injured.
The four suspects, aged 17, 18 and 19, were arrested in the vicinity of another synagogue after a vehicle that was driving erratically drew the attention of authorities.
In Belgium, a synagogue in the city of Liège was rocked by an explosion on Monday in what the city’s mayor described as an antisemitic attack, according to local media reports.
In Michigan in the US, a synagogue was targeted in a car-ramming attack on Thursday. Though the motive in that incident is still unknown, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said that there’s a clear “nexus” between the Iran war and the attack, adding it’s no coincidence the suspect targeted a synagogue named Temple Israel.
