Amsterdam – Antisemitic rioters “actively sought out supporters of Israel to attack and attack them” after a soccer match in Amsterdam, authorities in the Netherlands said Monday, with police reporting five people were hospitalized and 62 arrested after a night of violence between them. Police did not say the nationality of anyone injured or detained after the chaos in the Dutch capital.
The Israeli government said it was helping coordinate flights home for Israeli fans caught up in the violence.
Israel is “doing everything to ensure the safety and security of our citizens who were brutally attacked in the horrific anti-Semitic incident in Amsterdam,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement. “It was decided that there is no need to send a professional rescue mission to the Netherlands. Instead, the effort will focus on providing civil aviation solutions for the recovery of our citizens.”
Israel’s airport authorities said the first of two planes sent to bring the nationals had left Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv and was expected to arrive in Amsterdam within hours.
X/ iAnnet via REUTERS.
The Dutch leader also condemned violence against Israeli fans as antisemitic.
The attack on Maccabi Tel Aviv football club fans happened after the Europa League football match between the team and the local Amsterdam team Ajax, but there were also clashes between Israeli fans and local residents before the game.
The violence erupted despite a ban on pro-Palestinian demonstrations near the football stadium imposed by Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema, who feared clashes between protesters and Israeli club supporters.
The violent clashes were reported around midnight local time, with many fights and acts of vandalism in central Amsterdam. Before the game, many Maccabi fans were among hundreds of people marching through Amsterdam in a pro-Israel demonstration, during which flares were lit and Palestinian flags hanging on some streets were reportedly destroyed. There were clashes with pro-Palestinian residents before the game.
Mouneb Taim/Anadolu/Getty
In an earlier statement, Netanyahu’s office said the prime minister had ordered two “rescue planes” to be sent to Amseterdam to evacuate Israeli citizens, but the decision was later reversed. Netanyahu’s office also banned members of the country’s military from flying to the Netherlands for an unspecified period of time.
“The violent image of the attack on our citizens in Amsterdam will not be forgotten,” Netanyahu’s office said, adding that the Israeli government “views premeditated antisemitic attacks on Israeli citizens with all gravity.”
Netanyahu’s office demanded that the Dutch government take “strong and swift action” against those involved.
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said on social media that he was following reports of violence “with horror.”
“Unacceptable antisemitic attacks on the Israeli people. I am related to everyone involved,” he added, saying he had spoken with Netanyahu and “confirmed that the perpetrators will be tracked down and prosecuted. It is now quiet in the capital.”
In a post on the X social media platform, Israeli President Isaac Herzog Israel denounced the attack as a “pogrom,” referring to historic racist attacks against Jews in Russia and Eastern Europe, and said that they remind us of the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel that triggered Israel’s war in Gaza and Lebanon.
The Israeli Embassy in Washington said in X that “hundreds” of Maccabi fans “were attacked and assaulted in Amsterdam tonight as they left the stadium after the game,” according to AFP. The embassy blamed the violence on “mobs targeting innocent Israelis.”
Geert Wilders, a far-right nationalist member of parliament whose Freedom Party won elections in the Netherlands last year and who is a staunch ally of Israel, reacted to a video showing a Maccabi fan being surrounded by several people.
“It looks like a Jewish hunt in the streets of Amsterdam. The arrest and deportation of multicultural scum who attacked Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters in our streets. Shame that this could happen in the Netherlands. Totally unacceptable,” said Wilders.
