Dutch police arrested dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators in Amsterdam on Sunday who gathered despite a ban on gatherings in the city, after violence three days ago on the sidelines of a match between Ajax Amsterdam and Maccabi Tel -Aviv.
These arrests come following the confirmation by Dutch justice of the ban, wanted by the city's mayor, of a pro-Palestinian demonstration on Sunday in Amsterdam.
“The mayor has rightly decided that there will be a ban on demonstrations this weekend in the city,” the Amsterdam court announced on X Sunday, adding that a request to overturn the ban had been “rejected “.
Despite this ban, several hundred demonstrators went to Dam Square brandishing signs with the inscriptions: “Give us back our streets” or “Free Palestine”, noted an AFP journalist.
Police in riot gear intervened shortly after the court's decision to maintain the ban, arresting dozens of demonstrators, according to AFP journalists on site.
Those arrested were taken to buses waiting nearby, and released elsewhere in the city, according to local media AT5.
Police did not say whether any protesters had been detained.
Amsterdam City Hall said it was extending until Thursday the measures taken in the city, which include a ban on wearing a mask and the mobilization of additional police personnel.
Dutch activist Frank van der Linde announced that he wanted to demonstrate on Dam Square on Sunday against the “genocide in Gaza, but also because (the) right to demonstrate has been withdrawn”, he said, quoted by the Dutch agency ANP.
“This demonstration has nothing to do with anti-Semitism,” said Alexander van Stokkum, a demonstrator who participated in the rally. She is “against the Israeli hooligans who were destroying our city”, he told AFP.
The Israeli embassy in The Hague advised in a statement on Sunday “Israelis and Jews staying in Amsterdam (…) to stay away from demonstrations”.
– Do not go to Paris –
Israeli authorities also called on Israeli supporters to avoid going to the France-Israel match next Thursday in Paris, which is being prepared under high tension.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday that he would attend the match to “send a message of fraternity and solidarity after the intolerable anti-Semitic acts that followed the match in Amsterdam this week.”
During the night from Thursday to Friday after the Europa League match, Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters were violently attacked by groups of individuals in the streets of Amsterdam. Clashes which occurred in a context of increasing anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli acts since the start of the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in Gaza.
The match took place on Thursday in a generally calm atmosphere, even if some Israeli supporters did not respect the minute of silence in memory of the victims of the floods in Spain, a country which recently recognized the State of Palestine.
The violence then began. Five Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters were briefly hospitalized. Police reported around sixty people arrested and Israel organized emergency flights to repatriate its citizens.
According to police, the groups which attacked supporters responded to a call to target Jews launched on social networks.
– “In-depth investigation” –
Videos authenticated by AFP show groups of individuals stalking Israeli supporters, throwing objects at them, hitting them and mistreating them. Between 20 and 30 Maccabi fans suffer injuries.
Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema spoke at a press conference of groups of individuals targeting supporters of the Israeli club, hitting and kicking them.
“It’s an explosion of anti-Semitism that I hope to never see again,” said Ms. Halsema, who said she was “ashamed” of this violence.
On Saturday, Caspar Veldkamp, Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, assured that a “thorough investigation will be carried out in the Netherlands”.
His Israeli counterpart, Gideon Saar, called the incidents “barbaric violence” against Israelis and Jews, saying that “it is very important that Europe wakes up.”
On Wednesday, isolated clashes took place between supporters, according to the authorities.
Maccabi supporters notably burned a Palestinian flag in the central Dam Square, Peter Holla said.
In a video posted on social networks, the origin of which could not be verified, what appeared to be fans of the Maccabi club sang songs in Hebrew hostile to the Palestinians.
