Security measures elevated at Jewish websites following knife assault in Zurich | EUROtoday

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Police have stepped up safety measures at Jewish websites in Zurich following a severe knife assault on an orthodox Jewish man within the Swiss metropolis overnigh.

Swiss police stated that they had taken motion after a 15-year-old Swiss youth was arrested for inflicting “life-threatening” accidents on a 50-year-old Jewish man in central Zurich on Saturday evening.

A Zurich police assertion stated it was not clear what sparked the assault, however that investigations have been “explicitly including the possibility of a crime motivated by antisemitism.”

The further safety was put in place for “specific locations with a Jewish connection,” police stated, following discussions with native Jewish organisations. They gave no additional particulars.

Jonathan Kreutner, common secretary of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities (SIG), advised Swiss tv that bodily assaults on Jewish individuals within the nation have been uncommon.

“A case like this is really a new dimension,” he stated.

Concern concerning the danger of antisemitic behaviour in Switzerland has grown for the reason that assaults by Hamas gunmen on southern Israel on Oct. 7 and subsequent marketing campaign towards the Islamist group by the Israeli authorities in Gaza.

Last month, the SIG raised concern about attitudes to Jewish individuals after native media reported police had opened an investigation into an indication in Hebrew displayed by a enterprise in Davos which declared Jews have been barred from renting ski gear.

It comes as French authorities are searching an assailant who attacked a person leaving a synagogue in Paris.

Interior minister Gerald Darmanin stated the assault on a person in his early 60s was “a new antisemitic attack that occurred in Paris” on Friday night.

He added: “Everything is being done to apprehend the perpetrator of this unspeakable act.”

Reports in French media say an assailant was seen bodily and verbally assaulting a person at about 5.30pm native time on Friday whereas he was leaving a synagogue in Paris’s twentieth district.

The assailant kicked and punched the person a number of occasions, and shouted an ethnic slur at him, based on a report by French broadcaster BFM, citing police sources.

The sufferer of the assault was taken to a hospital. The suspected attacker fled on foot, the report additionally stated.

The assault got here hours after Mr Darmanin stated he had ordered police prefectures across the nation to “immediately strengthen protections” of Jewish communities, significantly round colleges and locations of worship.

He stated in a put up on X that heightened surveillance round locations, frequented by “our Jewish compatriots” aimed to forestall them being focused due to the “unfolding tragedies in the Middle East”.

A pointy rise in antisemitic acts in France has been reported within the wake of the October 7 Hamas assault on Israel.

Data from the inside ministry and the Jewish Community Protection Service watchdog confirmed 1,676 antisemitic acts have been reported in 2023, in comparison with 436 the earlier yr.