Polish police investigate arson attack on Warsaw synagogue

Polish authorities on Wednesday condemned an attempted arson attack against a Warsaw synagogue.

Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, quoting the country’s chief rabbi, said that “someone tried to set fire to the Nozyk synagogue with a Molotov cocktail.”

“Thank God no one was hurt,” the minister added in a post on X, the former Twitter.

An AFP journalist who went to the scene saw a black stain across a window that appeared to have been caused by flames. But there was no major damage to the synagogue.

Poland’s chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, could not be immediately contacted. Warsaw police said they had investigators at the scene.

Sikorski’s message questioned who would have carried out the attack on the 20th anniversary of Poland’s membership of the European Union.

Traces of flames are seen on the facade of the Nozyk Synagogue in Warsaw on May 1, 2024, after a Molotov cocktail was thrown at the building. (Sergei GAPON / AFP)

“Maybe the same ones who scrawled the Stars of David in Paris?” he said.

French prosecutors started an investigation after several dozen Jewish symbols were daubed on buildings in Paris in October as tensions increased with Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, which erupted with the terrorist organization’s unprecedented attack, in which 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and 253 were taken hostage.

France believes that Russian security services were behind the vandalism, an official French source said, but Russia denied any involvement.