Explosive devices were set off at two Jewish institutions in the Netherlands within two days, Dutch officials said on Saturday, denouncing what they described as antisemitic attacks.
On Saturday, Mayor Femke Halsema of Amsterdam said an overnight blast had damaged the outer wall of a Jewish school there, calling it a “targeted attack against the Jewish community.” On Friday, in Rotterdam, the police arrested four teenagers after an explosion started a brief fire at a synagogue early that morning.
No one was injured in either episode, but the Dutch authorities said they had moved quickly to beef up security at Jewish institutions.
Ms. Halsema said in a statement that Jews in Amsterdam were “increasingly confronted with antisemitism, and that is unacceptable.”
A police manhunt is underway for the person who set off the blast at the school, who was caught on camera, Ms. Halsema said.
The U.S.-Israeli war with Iran and Israel’s strikes on Lebanon have raised fears around the world of retaliatory attacks on Jews. On Thursday, a man drove a truck into a synagogue outside Detroit in what the authorities called an antisemitic attack.
In Rotterdam, within hours of the blast at the synagogue on Friday, the police pulled over a car that was being driven erratically near another synagogue. The driver, who matched the description of a suspect in the bombing, was arrested along with three others in the car, the police said. The four ranged in age from 17 to 19.
Prime Minister Rob Jetten called the two attacks “horrible,” adding, “In the Netherlands, there must be no place for antisemitism.”
Early on Monday morning, a synagogue in the Belgian city of Liège was damaged by an explosion, which caused no injuries. Belgium’s interior minister, Bernard Quintin, called it “an abject antisemitic act.”
Lynsey Chutel is a Times reporter based in London who covers breaking news in Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
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