Israeli football fans were attacked in Amsterdam: five hospitalized, dozens of suspects arrested

Amsterdam — Anti-Semitic rioters “actively sought out Israeli supporters to target and attack them” after a soccer match in Amsterdam, Dutch authorities said Friday, with police reporting five people hospitalized and 62 detained after a night of violence. The Israeli government said it was helping coordinate flights home for Israeli fans caught up in the violence.

Israel was “doing everything to ensure the safety of our citizens who were brutally attacked in a horrific anti-Semitic incident in Amsterdam,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement. “It was decided that there was no need to send a professional rescue mission to the Netherlands. Instead, efforts will be focused on providing civil aviation solutions for the recovery of our citizens.”

Dutch leaders also condemned the violence as anti-Semitic.

The attacks on supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv football club took place after a Europa League match between their team and local Ajax Amsterdam.

The violence erupted despite a ban on a pro-Palestinian demonstration outside the soccer stadium imposed by Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema, who feared clashes would break out between protesters and supporters of the Israeli club.

The clashes reportedly took place around midnight local time, with numerous fights and acts of vandalism taking place in the center of Amsterdam.

In an earlier statement, Netanyahu’s office said the prime minister had ordered two “rescue planes” to Amsterdam to evacuate Israeli citizens, but the decision was later reversed. Netanyahu’s office also banned any of the country’s military personnel from flying to the Netherlands for an indefinite period.

“The brutal images of the attack on our citizens in Amsterdam will not go unnoticed,” Netanyahu’s office said, adding that the Israeli government “views the deliberate anti-Semitic attack on Israeli citizens with extreme seriousness.”

Netanyahu’s office demanded that the Dutch government take “decisive and swift action” against those involved.

Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said on social media that he had been following reports of violence “with horror”.

“Absolutely unacceptable anti-Semitic attacks on Israelis. I am in close contact with everyone involved,” he added, saying he had spoken to Netanyahu and “stressed that those responsible will be found and brought to justice. Now it’s calm in the capital.”

In a post on social media platform X, Israeli President Isaac Herzog Israel condemned the attacks as a “pogrom”, referring to historical racist attacks on Jews in Russia and Eastern Europe, and said they were reminiscent of the October 7, 2023 attacks. the Hamas attack on Israel that provoked Israel’s ongoing wars in Gaza and Lebanon.

The Israeli embassy in Washington said on X that “hundreds” of Maccabi fans “were ambushed and attacked today in Amsterdam as they were leaving the stadium after the game,” AFP reported. The embassy blamed “a mob targeting innocent Israelis” for the violence.

Geert Wilders, a far-right nationalist lawmaker whose Freedom Party won last year’s election in the Netherlands and is a staunch ally of Israel, reacted to the video, which apparently shows the Maccabi fan being surrounded by several men.

“It’s like hunting Jews on the streets of Amsterdam. Arrest and deport the multicultural scum who attacked Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters on our streets. It’s a shame that this could happen in the Netherlands. Absolutely unacceptable,” said Wilders.