Starmer marks ‘nightmare’ two years since Oct. 7 attack, says rising antisemitism in UK ‘a stain on who we are’

By AFP and ToI Staff 7 October 2025, 2:31 am

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Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria talk to a member of the local Jewish community as they visit the scene of the terror attack outside Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue in Crumpsall, north Manchester, on October 3, 2025. (Phil Noble/Pool/AFP)

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer says the two years since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which sparked the war in Gaza, have been a “living nightmare” for many.

“Today we mark two years since the horrifying attacks on Israel by Hamas terrorists on October 7th 2023…. The worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” Starmer says in a statement.

“Since that awful day, so many have endured a living nightmare,” he says, vowing to continue efforts to bring home British hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.

Starmer notes the period has seen surging antisemitism in the UK, days after two Jewish men were killed in a terror attack against a Manchester synagogue.

“Jewish communities have also endured rising antisemitism on our streets” including the deadly car-ramming and stabbing attack last Thursday in Manchester, which took place on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.

“This is a stain on who we are, and this country will always stand tall and united against those who wish harm and hatred upon Jewish communities,” said the British leader.