‘Burning object’ thrown at Israeli embassy in The Hague, suspect arrested
Police say no injuries; local media reports building was evacuated; embassy says incident is evidence of ‘worrisome consequences of growing hate and incitement’
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Dutch police said on Thursday they had arrested someone suspected of throwing a burning object at Israel’s embassy in The Hague, which is under heavy security amid the war in Gaza.
Neither the police nor embassy officials gave any description of the object. No one was wounded during the incident, police said in a post on social media platform X, without giving more details.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry is aware of the incident and overseeing the response on the ground, a ministry spokesperson told The Times of Israel.
There has been a rapid rise in the number of hate crimes reported across Europe since the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza began last October.
In a Dutch-language statement, the Israeli embassy in the Netherlands wrote on its official account on X: “It is unacceptable that such an attack occurs in the Netherlands. Fortunately, no one was hurt.
“We are confident that authorities will take all possible measures to prevent the recurrence of such attacks,” the embassy continued. “The attack is evidence of the worrisome consequences of growing hate and incitement. This hate cannot be tolerated.”
All staff from the embassy, which moved in recent years from the city center to a quieter area in the beachside Scheveningen neighborhood, were safe and evacuated from the building, according to De Telegraaf daily.
Security has been stepped up around Israeli embassies across the world as the country’s military presses an offensive in Gaza following the brutal October 7 attack by Palestinian terror group Hamas that opened the war.
The attack by thousands of Hamas-led terrorists who burst through the border with the Gaza Strip killed 1,200 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians, amid horrific atrocities. Terrorists also abducted 253 people of all ages who were taken as hostages to Gaza.
Israel responded with a military campaign to destroy Hamas and free the hostages, of whom 130 remain in captivity.
In February, there was a bomb scare at the official residence of the Israeli ambassador in The Hague. Police cordoned off the area but found no explosives.
At the time, authorities in The Hague had imposed emergency security measures around the Israeli embassy in response to an unspecified threat.
In January, the bomb squad in Sweden destroyed a “live” device at Israel’s embassy in Stockholm, something authorities described as a potential “terrorist crime.”
