Clashes after a Europa League match Thursday evening between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv left at least five injured.
“Anti-Semitic attacks which are a shame for the country,” declared the mayor of Amsterdam and the Dutch Prime Minister.
The TF1 news collected the testimony of Israeli supporters who were violently attacked.
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Dozens of men in black chasing Israeli supporters. We are in the streets of Amsterdam on Thursday, November 7 in the evening after a Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel-Aviv. As can be seen in the video above, a man is surrounded. He gets kicked and punched. “It's for the killed children, motherfucker,” his attackers shout at him. The man on the ground, terrified, asks them to stop. “Take my money”, he blurted. “Say free Palestine, say it”, pursue the men in black. “Yes, free Palestine”he replies. A little further away, an Israeli supporter, visibly unconscious, is beaten.
They were waiting for us and attacked us
Israeli fan beaten
The day after these attacks, the TF1 team on site collected the testimony of an Israeli who had been beaten. For him, these attacks were organized. “They were in front of all the metro and tram stations. They were there. They knew where to wait for us, they knew exactly what they were doing. They were waiting for us and attacked us. They hit my friend in the leg. They opened my lips. We didn't know what was happening. We didn't know what to do.he says.
The events occurred after the football match, although there had been no excesses during the match. The events degenerated as they left the stadium, like an ambush. Pro-Palestinians attacked all the Israeli supporters they encountered. In an emergency, the Israeli embassy asked them to take refuge in their hotels. Were the police officers, largely overwhelmed, there enough? The toll is 62 people arrested and five injured hospitalized.
These actions were immediately condemned and described as anti-Semitic by the Dutch Prime Minister, Dick Schoof. “This is a horrible anti-Semitic attack and we will not tolerate it. We will prosecute the perpetrators. I am deeply ashamed that this could happen in the Netherlands in 2024”he reacted.
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Did the attackers want to respond to Israeli supporters who chanted just before the match: “Let the Israeli army win to eliminate the Arabs”? Already the day before the match, according to Dutch police, Israelis were filmed tearing a Palestinian flag from a facade. An Israeli supporter told TF1 that he was the victim of the first attacks that same day. “We found ourselves faced with 20-25 people who ran towards us. They pushed me to the ground, they hit me”he says.
Benjamin Netanyahu immediately announced an exceptional measure: the sending of two free commercial planes to repatriate his nationals. The Israeli Prime Minister does not have harsh enough words to describe these events, “pogroms, new crystal nights”and sends Europe back to its darkest hours.
