Two Jewish men were seriously wounded after they were stabbed in London on Wednesday, amid a spike in attacks targeting Jewish communities across the United Kingdom.
The attack took place near a bus stop in the Golders Green neighborhood, which is home to a large Jewish community. Police are treating the attack as an act of terrorism. Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya (the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right), an Iran-linked terrorist group that has conducted previous antisemitic attacks, claimed responsibility for the attack, although analysts cautioned that the group could simply be trying to attach itself to a stabbing it had no direct role in.
The first attack the group claimed was a firebombing of a synagogue in Liège, Belgium, in early March. Since then, they’ve claimed several additional attacks, including several arson attacks in the U.K., Germany, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, although the credibility of some of these claims is still uncertain. Unusually, Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya has no channels of its own; instead, it publishes statements and videos through Telegram channels affiliated with other Iran-backed groups.
A 45-year-old man was arrested shortly after the attack, with Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley telling reporters that the suspect has a history of “serious violence and mental health issues.”
British Jewish community hit by wave of antisemitic attacks
The attack came just over a week after a series of arson attacks on Jewish institutions in the London area. The attacks targeted the Finchley Reform Synagogue, another site tied to a Jewish charity in Hendon, the Kenton United Synagogue, and a residential building opposite a synagogue in Finchley.
Additionally, in late March, four ambulances belonging to Hatzola, a Jewish volunteer ambulance service, were torched in Golders Green. These attacks are just part of a growing wave of antisemitism that the U.K. and many other countries around the world have recorded in recent years.
In 2025, the Community Security Trust, which monitors antisemitism in the U.K., reported 3,700 antisemitic incidents, the second-highest annual total ever.
In comments to reporters on Wednesday, Rowley acknowledged that the U.K. has seen a rise in racist and antisemitic hate crimes recently and that some of the suspects detained so far “are being encouraged, persuaded, or paid to commit acts of violence on behalf of foreign organizations and hostile states.”
“Too many Jewish people in this country feel they have to make choices that no Briton should ever have to make, about how they dress, where they go, or how visibly they live their lives. That is completely unacceptable and has gone on for far too long,” the police commissioner added.
King Charles III said he was “deeply concerned” about the attack, with Buckingham Palace saying “His thoughts and prayers are with the two individuals who were injured and offers his heartfelt gratitude to those who so selflessly rushed to their aid.”
On Wednesday evening, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer held a meeting with senior ministers, the London Mayor, and the police commissioner to coordinate the response to the attacks. He added that he would hold a meeting on Thursday with criminal justice agencies to ensure “effective and swift justice” in these cases.
Last week, Starmer announced that legislation meant to designate the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization would be introduced in the next session of Parliament, which begins in July. The legislation is being considered in light of Iranian links to attacks on Jews and Iranian expats living in the U.K.
U.K. Security Minister Dan Jarvis noted last week that 15 arrests had been made so far in the arson cases. He stressed that the British government was committing an additional £5 million ($6.7 million USD) for the deployment of specialist officers to support vulnerable communities, an urgent review of antisemitism in the NHS, and an investment of £7 million ($9.4 million) to tackle antisemitism in schools, colleges, and universities.
Jonathan Hall, the government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, argued that the government needed to target the hateful ideologies behind the attacks, including by deporting those preaching antisemitic content, and by banning pro-Palestine marches in which antisemitic slogans have often been heard.
“It’s clearly impossible at the moment for any of these pro-Palestine marches not to incubate within them some sort of antisemitic or demonizing language,” Hall told Times Radio. “I think it’s perhaps fair to say that we are now at a point at which the government needs to start to take more risks as to what it’s prepared to do, and that it’s not simply enough to offer thoughts and prayers and to support the police investigation.”
‘If you’re visibly Jewish, you’re not safe’
British Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mervis warned that the latest attack proves that “if you are visibly Jewish, you’re not safe, and far more needs to be done.”
“It’s a sustained effort to terrorize the Jewish community, which will not succeed, because we’re a strong and resilient community. We face these kind of attacks and these incidents with great fortitude. However, this cannot be allowed to continue,” the chief rabbi added. “We need to tackle not just symptoms, but also the causes. We need to recognize that state-sponsored terrorism on the streets of our country is simply unacceptable.”
The Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council noted the string of attacks that led up to the stabbing, stressing that “For many in our community, this feels relentless,” in a joint statement on Wednesday.
“We cannot ignore the context: a wave of antisemitic hatred driven by extremists at home and abroad, including Islamist extremism that motivated the Heaton Park attack, and attempts by the Iranian regime to orchestrate violence against British Jews,” the statement continued. “This attack, and the others we have witnessed, are not only on the Jewish community, but on our country and its values. It is an attack on the right to live freely, to celebrate one’s identity without fear, and to walk our streets in safety.”
The two organizations warned that “This hatred cannot be contained with words. It must be confronted, punished, and deterred with the full force of the state. The antisemites are attempting to raise the cost of being Jewish in the UK. We must work as a society to ensure the cost of being antisemitic is far higher…British Jews will not be intimidated. But we should not face this threat alone. A silent majority offers little reassurance. This is a moment for the whole of society to speak up loudly and stand together against this hatred.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said he was “horrified by yet another violent attack on Jews in broad daylight on the streets of London.”
“Let me be clear: No Jew anywhere in the world should be a target because of their faith. In one of the great capital cities of the West, it has become dangerous to openly walk the streets as a Jew. This is an unacceptable situation. The British government and authorities must take urgent and immediate action before the next antisemitic attack occurs,” added Herzog.
“We have raised the alarm over the rise in global antisemitism again and again. It’s time for the world to wake up and fight this vicious wave of Jew hatred with all possible means. We in Israel will not stay silent as our Jewish sisters and brothers are threatened and attacked around the world.”
