This Thursday, November 7, 2024, a Europa League match took place between the Israeli team Maccabi Tel-Aviv and Ajax Amsterdam. Numerous attacks have targeted Israeli supporters, pushing Benjamin Netanyahu to send two rescue planes to help them.
According to the'AFP Focusclashes broke out overnight in the streets of Amsterdam, following the football match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel-Aviv, a match won by the Dutch club (5-0). 3,000 Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters traveled to the Netherlands to support their team.
Videos posted on social media showed “brutal attacks by masked attackers, some of whom carried Palestinian flags and shouted “Liberate Palestine!””. According to the newspaper Haaretzaround ten Israeli supporters were reportedly injured, and contact was lost with two others. The Israeli daily Maarivexplains to him that he has collected testimonies which evoke “planned stabbings and ambushes”which would have been tense by individuals speaking in Arabic.
Two emergency rescue planes
For its part, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared overnight that it was informed “appalling incidents of the utmost seriousness targeting Israelis”and urgently dispatched two emergency planes to the site to provide assistance to his fellow citizens. The Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs, for his part, called on his Dutch counterpart to help Israeli supporters leave the country. The Israeli authorities also reportedly called on their fellow citizens not to leave their hotel rooms.
“A large number of vehicles from the mobile unit are present and reinforcements have also been called. Young people are also said to have provoked the police”described the local media AT5relayed by AFP Focus. Police protected and escorted Israeli supporters to their hotel. Amsterdam police said they made 57 arrests in total during the day.
