The attacks on Israeli football supporters in Amsterdam this week came days after tensions rose between fans and pro-Palestinian activists and others in the city, a chronology of events shows.
Groups of thugs targeted supporters of Israeli football team Maccabi Tel Aviv early Friday after the match with Amsterdam’s Ajax, city Mayor Famke Halsema said.
Police said dozens of Israeli supporters were chased and attacked, with five suffering injuries that required hospital treatment. In total, 63 suspects have been arrested and authorities have promised an investigation, as politicians inside and outside the country have condemned it.
a day before the match
Police said tensions began to build on Wednesday, when some of the 3,000 Maccabi supporters in the city center had minor altercations with locals, including taxi drivers and Ajax supporters.
A police report said groups of Maccabi supporters burned a Palestinian flag on Dam Square, took down another flag from a nearby building and vandalized a taxi.
Following a call on social media, angry Muslim taxi drivers gathered outside a casino where 400 Maccabi supporters had gathered, and police intervened in the clashes.
Some Dutch media reported that social media videos on Wednesday showed a Muslim taxi driver being beaten and a Maccabi supporter shouting anti-Semitic abuses before being pushed into a canal. Reuters was unable to verify those descriptions of the scenes.
match day
On the day of the game, Maccabi supporters were filmed in video verified by Reuters chanting anti-Arab slogans, including “Fuck Palestine”, in front of the national monument on Amsterdam’s central Dam Square.
Dutch pro-Palestinian groups planned to demonstrate outside the stadium during the game. They argued that the match should have been canceled due to Israel’s war in Gaza, in which more than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed.
But Dutch authorities allowed it to go ahead because relations between supporters of the two teams – a common source of football violence – are generally good, Halsema said on Friday.
Considering the confrontation between protesters and football supporters to be the greatest security threat, the mayor moved the demonstration against the match to a remote location.
Ajax’s most staunch supporters, known as the F-side, had said that politics and football should be kept separate and that they would “intervene if necessary” if the demonstration went ahead at the stadium.
Ajax has strong Jewish associations, and fans sometimes carry Star of David flags to matches; It also has many Muslim supporters.
match and after
Riot police at the stadium kept opposing groups apart and few incidents were recorded after the match ended around 11 p.m.
But around midnight, security in the city center collapsed.
Calls to target returning Maccabi supporters began circulating on Dutch messaging groups, leading Mayor Halsema to describe it as an “anti-Semitic hit and run attack”.
Police accustomed to dispersing football crowds could not easily stop small, highly mobile groups of attackers who had no obvious allegiance to the club.
Police said they gathered about 200 Maccabi fans at Dam Square to protect them and escort them back to their hotels. But several others were attacked elsewhere in the city, and the perpetrators immediately fled on motor scooters.
Social media videos verified by Reuters showed groups attacking Israelis, kicking victims after they had fallen, throwing fireworks and in one instance shouting: “That’s Palestine. That’s Gaza, motherfuckers… Now you know how it feels.”
Dutch news site Bender published video of a large group of Maccabi supporters arming themselves with sticks, pipes and rocks and clashing twice with opponents while marching through the city after the match.
growing antisemitism
Anti-Semitic incidents have increased in the Netherlands since Israel launched attacks on Gaza following Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023. Several Dutch Jewish organizations and schools have reported threats and hate mail.
Less than 1% of Amsterdam’s post-Holocaust population is Jewish, while about 15% is Muslim, mostly second- and first-generation immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East.
The conservative Dutch government has vowed to impose Europe’s strictest measures to limit immigration and reject asylum seekers.
Most of the 63 people detained early Friday were later released pending charges.
Amsterdam banned demonstrations all weekend and gave police emergency stop and search powers.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
