2024-11-08 19:25:02
Five people were hospitalized and dozens arrested in the Dutch capital Amsterdam, police said Friday, after what authorities said was violence targeting Israeli soccer fans.
Footage circulating on social media showed violence in the city’s streets, with one video geolocated by NBC News to near Amsterdam’s central station showing people chasing others and physically assaulting them. Separate video geolocated by NBC News showed fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv in Amsterdam singing “Death to the Arabs” and “Let the IDF win. We will f*** the Arabs,” as well as tearing down a Palestinian flag.
Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema’s office described the events following the match between Dutch giants Ajax and the Israeli side, which the hosts won 5-0, as “very turbulent, with several incidents of violence aimed at Maccabi supporters.”
At a news conference Friday, Halsema said emergency measures had been put in place across the city, including a ban on demonstrations.
He said Thursday night’s events were a “shame” to the city, with local police saying that five people required hospital care, while 20 to 30 others suffered non-serious injuries. 62 people were arrested, police said.
“This outburst of violence toward Israeli supporters is unacceptable and cannot be defended in any way,” his office said in a separate statement published online. “There is no excuse for the antisemitic behavior exhibited last night by rioters who actively sought out Israeli supporters to attack and assault them.”
Israel’s embassy in Amsterdam said fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv were “ambushed and attacked” after the Europa League match as “mobs chanted anti-Israel slogans and proudly shared videos of their violent acts on social media.”
Israel said it planned to send multiple commercial planes to evacuate its nationals out of Amsterdam, reversing an earlier plan to dispatch military planes.
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said he was “horrified by the antisemitic attacks on Israeli citizens.”
He described the violence as “completely unacceptable” and said he had spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by phone “to stress that the perpetrators will be identified and prosecuted.”
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called the images emerging from Amsterdam “horrific & deeply shameful for us in Europe,” in a post on X.
The hours prior to the game had seen a number of incidents that led to hundreds of officers being dispatched from across the country to assist with policing, the city’s acting police chief, Peter Holla, said during Friday’s news conference.
In one incident on Wednesday, he said, Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters had attacked a taxi and a Palestinian flag.
On Thursday, in the lead-up to the game, he said Israeli fans had gathered in a square, with pro-Palestinian demonstrators also gathering nearby — and he said authorities had difficulties keeping the two groups apart.
It was after the match that the violence ensued, he said.
Branding the violence an “antisemitic pogrom,” Israeli President Isaac Herzog said he trusted that authorities in the Netherlands would “act immediately and take all necessary measures to protect, locate and rescue all Israelis and Jews under attack, and to eradicate the violence against Jewish and Israeli citizens by all required means.”
U.S. Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, the special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, condemned the incident, also saying it was “terribly reminiscent of a classic pogrom.”
They were among a number of officials across the world to draw such parallels after the events, which unfolded in a city that was once home to a young Anne Frank and her family as they hid from Nazi occupiers during World War Two.
Ajax has historically been seen as having strong links to the city’s large Jewish community.
Lipstadt said she was also “deeply disturbed by how long the reported attacks lasted and call on the government to conduct a thorough investigation into security force intervention and on how these despicable attacks transpired.”
European soccer’s governing body, UEFA, condemned the violence in a statement on Friday, saying that it trusted authorities to “identify and charge as many of those responsible for such actions as possible.”
UEFA said it planned to “examine all official reports, gather available evidence, assess them and evaluate any further appropriate course of action in accordance with its relevant regulatory framework.”
Thursday night’s events unfolded as Israel continued its deadly offensive in Gaza, where local officials say more than 43,000 people have been killed in the yearlong assault launched following Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attacks, in which Israeli officials say some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 others taken hostage.
Israel has also waged a monthslong offensive in Lebanon in its fight against Hezbollah, as members of the international community seek to avoid an all-out war in the region.
Those conflicts have sparked protests across the world, including at sporting events. A giant “Free Palestine” banner was unveiled at a Paris Saint Germain game on Wednesday, drawing criticism from France’s interior minister. Israel’s national team is scheduled to play France in Paris on Nov. 14.
