UK leaders condemned the antisemitic stabbing in Golders Green, which left two men in hospital earlier today.
Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor, head of Counter Terrorism Policing, declared the incident is being treated as a terrorist attack.
The victims, aged 76 and 34, were treated by local authorities and the London Ambulance Service on the scene and are now reported to be in stable condition.
This comes after a string of reported antisemitic terrorist attacks continues to threaten London Jewish communities – including last month’s Golders Green arson attack on four ambulances from Jewish community volunteers, Hatzola, sparking national outcry.
Taylor has said: “Our highly specialised teams of officers are working with the Metropolitan police to progress this investigation quickly and establish exactly what has happened.
“We are also working with our partners in security services to ensure we have a full intelligence picture, and one of the lines of enquiry is whether this attack was deliberately targeting the Jewish community in London.
“That community is strong, but they will be incredibly concerned to see and hear what has happened today, particularly in the wake of incidents in recent weeks.”
Police tasered a 45-year-old male suspect after he allegedly attempted to stab officers during arrest, and he now remains in police custody.
Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions, Sir Keir Starmer said: “It is deeply concerning to everyone in this House.
“There is now a police investigation, and I think we all need to do everything we can to support that investigation and be absolutely clear in our determination to deal with any of these offences, the like of which we’ve seen too much recently.”
The Prime Minister also denounced the attack on X.
Earlier this week, Counter Policing London also launched an investigation into the Golders Green memorial wall arson, making this the suburb’s third high-profile anti-Semitism crime within the last month.
The Mayor of London called the attack “appalling” in a statement on X.
He said: “There has been an appalling attack on two Jewish Londoners in Golders Green.
“London’s Jewish community have been the target of a series of shocking antisemitic attacks. There must be absolutely no place for antisemitism in society…”
Other areas of London borough Barnet have been subject to antisemitic hate crime, after an attempted arson attack on a Finchley synagogue and a Hendon business two weeks earlier.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch also commented on the crime on X before arriving at the site later in the day.
She wrote: “Jewish people in our country are under constant attack.
“This is no longer a growing pattern. There is an epidemic of violence against Jewish people.
“It is now a national emergency and needs to be treated as such by the Government and public authorities.”
Featured Image Credit: James Cracknell, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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