{"id":6744,"date":"2026-04-05T16:33:50","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T16:33:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/6744\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T16:33:50","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T16:33:50","slug":"uk-police-investigate-after-jewish-charity-ambulances-set-ablaze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/6744\/","title":{"rendered":"UK police investigate after Jewish charity ambulances set ablaze"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON (AP) \u2014 Four ambulances belonging to a Jewish charity were set on fire early Monday in London<\/a> in what British police are investigating as an antisemitic hate crime. Detectives are working to determine whether a claim of responsibility from a group with alleged links to Iran is authentic.<\/p>\n

Though it has not been classified as a terrorist incident, counterterror officers have been put in charge of the investigation. No one was injured in the nighttime attack, which shattered windows in nearby homes and left the vehicles charred shells.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are pursuing all lines of inquiry, including an online claim of responsibility by an Islamist group who have claimed other attacks across Europe and have potential Iranian state links,\u201d said Mark Rowley, chief of London\u2019s Metropolitan Police.<\/p>\n

Religious and political leaders condemned what Prime Minister Keir Starmer<\/a> called a \u201chorrific\u201d attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cAntisemitism has no place in our society and it\u2019s really important that we all stand together at a moment like this,\u201d said Starmer, who met Jewish community leaders at 10 Downing St. on Monday to discuss the response to the attack.<\/p>\n

Officers were called to Golders Green, a north London neighborhood with a large Jewish population, after receiving reports of a fire, the Metropolitan Police force said. Four ambulances belonging to Hatzola Northwest, a volunteer organization that provides emergency medical response, were damaged, according to the London Fire Brigade.<\/p>\n

Oxygen cylinders on the vehicles exploded, breaking windows in an adjacent apartment block. Nearby homes were evacuated as a precaution.<\/p>\n

What appeared to be footage from a security camera showed three figures in black wearing hoods carrying a canister toward one of the ambulance before flames erupted around the vehicle. Police said they are looking for three suspects but no arrests have been made yet. <\/p>\n

Police try to authenticate claim of responsibility<\/p>\n

A video posted on Telegram, allegedly by an Islamist group called Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia, showed a map of the location where the ambulances were kept and footage of them on fire. A group of the same name, which translates as the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right, previously claimed responsibility for synagogue attacks in Belgium and the Netherlands.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s government has called it a recently founded group with suspected links to pro-Iran networks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rapid growth in recent years of Iranian state threats is grave,\u201d Rowley told the annual dinner of the Community Security Trust, which works to provide safety for the Jewish community organization. But he said \u201cit is too early for me to attribute last night\u2019s attack in Golders Green to the Iranian state.\u201d<\/p>\n

The attack spread fear and alarm through Britain\u2019s approximately 300,000-strong Jewish community, which feels increasingly vulnerable.<\/p>\n

Mark Reisner, who lives in the neighborhood, heard loud explosions and arrived at the scene \u201cjust as the third ambulance was blowing up,\u201d he told Sky News. <\/p>\n

\u201cA very loud explosion, you sort of felt it go through your guts,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cit\u2019s just left us all reeling with confusion and shock.\u201d <\/p>\n

Previous attacks on UK Jewish community<\/p>\n

The number of antisemitic incidents reported across the U.K. has soared since Hamas\u2019 Oct. 7, 2023, attack<\/a> on Israel and Israel\u2019s ensuing war against Hamas in Gaza, according to the Community Security Trust, which works to protect the Jewish community. The group recorded 3,700 incidents in 2025, up from 1,662 in 2022.<\/p>\n

In October 2025, an attacker drove his car into people<\/a> gathered outside a Manchester synagogue to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur and stabbed one person to death. Another person died during the attack after being inadvertently shot by police<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Last week two men in London were charged with carrying out \u201chostile\u201d surveillance last year of the U.K.\u2019s Jewish community on behalf of Iran.<\/p>\n

Rowley, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, said the force would increase security for Jewish schools, synagogues and community centers ahead of Passover next month,<\/p>\n

Some members of the community criticize Starmer\u2019s Labour Party government for failing to prevent pro-Palestinian demonstrations from tipping into anti-Jewish speech and acts.<\/p>\n

Peter Zinkin, a Conservative politician who represents Golders Green on the local council, said the community felt \u201cdistress and anger.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBurning ambulances in the middle of the night is a disgrace,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd you have to ask yourself, why did it happen? And the reason I\u2019m afraid that it happened is that the government and the media, particularly certain parts of the media, have validated antisemitism on a countrywide scale.\u201d<\/p>\n

Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally, the head of the Anglican Church, said \u201csuch acts of violence, hatred and intimidation have no place in our society.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis called it a \u201csickening assault.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt a time when Jewish communities around the world are facing a growing pattern of these violent attacks, we will meet this moment with shared resolve and stand together against hatred and intimidation,\u201d he wrote on X.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writers Danica Kirka and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON (AP) \u2014 Four ambulances belonging to a Jewish charity were set on fire early Monday in London…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[26],"tags":[93,3570,61,3569,44,3571,24,1449,94,45,27,3574,3573,3572,426,472,1140,6,46],"class_list":["post-6744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-london","tag-antisemitism","tag-ap-top-news","tag-crime","tag-fires","tag-general-news","tag-hamas","tag-iran","tag-iran-war","tag-keir-starmer","tag-law-enforcement","tag-london","tag-mark-reisner","tag-mark-rowley","tag-peter-zinkin","tag-philanthropy","tag-religion","tag-terrorism","tag-united-kingdom","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116353070689964844","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}