London police report 1,353% rise in antisemitic hate crimes since Hamas onslaught
Force acknowledges surge in incidents of Jew hatred occurring ‘despite the increased presence of officers’ in UK capital; Islamophobic hate crimes also up
Antisemitic and Islamophobic hate crimes in London have soared amid the Israel-Hamas war, the British capital’s Metropolitan Police force said Friday
The Met, the UK’s biggest police force, said there had been 218 antisemitic offenses in London between October 1 and 18, compared to 15 in the same period last year, a rise of 1,353 percent.
The force added that Islamophobic crimes had increased from 42 to 101 during the same period, up 140%.
Police boosted patrols across parts of London and deployed officers to religious schools and places of worship following Hamas’s terror onslaught against Israel on October 7, the deadliest attack in the Jewish state’s history.
“Regrettably, despite the increased presence of officers we have seen a significant increase in hate crime across London,” the Met said, adding it had made 21 arrests for such offenses.
The arrests included a man detained on suspicion of defacing posters of missing Israelis. Another man is accused over ten incidents of Islamophobic graffiti on bus stops.
The British government has said there should be “zero tolerance for antisemitism or glorification of terrorism” on Britain’s streets.
Last week, it announced £3 million ($3.7 million) of extra funding to help protect the Jewish community from antisemitic attacks.
Tens of thousands of people rallied against Israel last weekend in London and other UK cities.
Another march is organized for London on Saturday. More than 1,000 officers are to police the event, the Met said.
The force reiterated that while supporting Hamas — a banned terrorist organization in Britain — is a crime, general expressions of support for Palestinians, including flying the Palestinian flag, are not criminal offenses.
Some 2,500 Palestinian terrorists from the Gaza Strip stormed into Israel by land, air and sea on October 7, killing some 1,400 people and seizing 200-250 hostages of all ages under the cover of massive rocket fire at Israeli towns and communities. The vast majority of those killed as gunmen seized border communities were civilians — men, women, children and the elderly, with entire families executed in their homes and over 260 slaughtered at an outdoor festival, many amid horrific acts of brutality by the terrorists.
The Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza says over 4,100 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes since the Hamas onslaught. The figures issued by the terror group cannot be independently verified, and are believed to include its own fighters and the victims of a blast at a Gaza City hospital on October 17 caused by an Islamic Jihad missile misfire that Hamas has blamed on Israel.
Israel says its offensive is aimed at destroying Hamas’s infrastructure, and has vowed to eliminate the entire terror group, which rules the Strip. It says it is targeting all areas where Hamas operates, while seeking to minimize civilian casualties.
