By Lili Bayer<\/p>\n
BRUSSELS, March 24 (Reuters) – The torching of a car overnight in Antwerp, for which two minors were arrested, is \u200cbeing treated as a suspected antisemitic attack, a Belgian official \u200csaid on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
European countries including Belgium, the Netherlands and Britain have witnessed incidents targeting the \u200bJewish community since the United States and Israel launched their war on Iran on February 28.<\/p>\n
Belgium on Monday deployed soldiers on the streets of its biggest cities to bolster security at Jewish sites including synagogues and schools.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson \u200cfor the Antwerp prosecutor \u2060said an investigation was under way, and that the two suspects had been arrested shortly before midnight on Monday, \u2060moments after the attack.<\/p>\n
They said a video circulating on social media that purportedly showed the arson attack appeared authentic and was part of the investigation. \u200bReuters did \u200bnot independently verify the video.<\/p>\n
Over the \u200bpast two weeks, synagogues have \u200cbeen attacked in Liege, Belgium, and in the Dutch city of Rotterdam, as well as a Jewish school in Amsterdam. In Britain, counter-terrorism officers are leading an investigation into an attack on Jewish community ambulances.<\/p>\n
“There must be a thorough investigation and decisive action to put an end to this \u200cclimate of intimidation before it spirals further,” \u200bIsrael’s ambassador to Belgium, Idit Rosenzweig-Abu, said \u200bon X.<\/p>\n
The SITE Intelligence website \u200bsaid an Iran-aligned multinational militant collective called Islamic Movement \u200cof the People of the Right \u200bHand had claimed \u200bresponsibility for the attack near a synagogue in Golders Green, London.<\/p>\n
It said the group had been behind the fires in Liege, Rotterdam \u200band Amsterdam.<\/p>\n
Mark Rowley, London’s \u200cpolice chief, said the claim was one of the lines of \u200binquiry being pursued.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Lili Bayer and Inti Landauro; editing \u200bby Richard Lough and Kevin Liffey)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Lili Bayer BRUSSELS, March 24 (Reuters) – The torching of a car overnight in Antwerp, for which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[6],"tags":[19,5811,7,1956,3971],"class_list":["post-8145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-antwerp","tag-antwerp","tag-arson-attack","tag-belgium","tag-jewish-community","tag-liege"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116284757280303553","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}