An explosion reportedly took place at a Jewish school in Amsterdam on Saturday. Femke Halsema, mayor of the Netherlands capital, described the incident as an attack targeted at the Jewish community, reported news agency Reuters citing Dutch outlet ANP. The explosion only caused limited damage, mayor Halsema said.
This comes a day after the police in Netherlands on Friday said four men were arrested after an arson attack on a synagogue in the centre of Rotterdam.
In the school attack, police are investigating camera footage appearing to show the person who detonated the explosive, Sky News UK reported.
These incidents are suspected to be part of heightened antisemitic violence while Jewish schools, synagogues and the community’s other institutions around the world have increased security fearing revenge attacks over the US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran that started two weeks ago.
In the Rotterdam incident, too, no one was injured as a result of the fire caused by an explosion around 3:40am local time, police said.
Surveillance had immediately been increased at other synagogues across the city.
The four men were held after police stopped a car that was driving suspiciously near another synagogue, with the description of the driver matching one of the perpetrators of the earlier attack.
It was unclear if the four suspects, aged 17 to 19, had plans for attacks on other synagogues, police said, as they called for information from witnesses.
Earlier, another synagogue around 200 km southeast in neighbouring European country Belgium, was hit by an explosion on Monday in what authorities said was an ​antisemitic attack. That attack caused damage but no injuries.
In Michigan in the US, a Lebanon-born US citizen crashed his truck into a synagogue and its preschool and was shot dead.
