Sweden reports sharp rise in antisemitic hate crimes since Hamas attack on Israel
Between Oct. 7 and end of 2023 there were 110 incidents reported, over 4 times as many as during the same period the year before
STOCKHOLM, Sweden — More than 100 antisemitic hate crimes were reported in Sweden between October 7 and the end of 2023, almost five times the number of the same period a year earlier, a report showed Thursday.
A total of 110 complaints were registered by police between October 7 — when Hamas launched an attack on southern Israel — and December 31, according to the report by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (BRA).
In 2022, the figure was 24.
Around 20 percent of the complaints contain “some form of reference to the Hamas attack… or the following violence in Gaza,” according to BRA.
“These include antisemitic placards and statements in connection with demonstrations, but also threats and offenses against individuals who, based on their Jewish background, have been blamed for Israel’s actions in Gaza,” Jon Lundgren, an investigator at BRA, said in a statement.
Sweden this year hosts the annual Eurovision Song Contest in the city of Malmo, where the local community has expressed concern there could be a rise in antisemitism around planned protests against Israel’s participation in the event.
In November pro-Palestinian demonstrators burned an Israeli flag outside the city’s only synagogue.
Antisemitic and Islamophobic attacks have been on the rise in many countries since the start of the conflict. Jewish communities around the world have reported spiking antisemitic incidents, much of which comes in the context of opposition to Israel’s offensive in Gaza.
War erupted on October 7 when the Palestinian terror group Hamas led a massive cross-border attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, amid numerous atrocities. The roughly 3,000 attackers who burst into southern Israel also abducted 253 people of all ages who were taken as hostages to the Gaza Strip.
Vowing to stamp out Hamas and topple its regime in Gaza, Israel launched a military campaign that also aims to free the hostages, of whom 129 remain in captivity, some believed no longer alive.
At least 34,400 Palestinians have been killed and over 77,600 injured in Gaza since the start of the war, the Hamas-run health ministry in the Strip says. The figures cannot be independently verified and include some 13,000 Hamas gunmen Israel says it has killed in battle. Israel also says it killed some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
