Posted on 11/08/24
| News Source: Times of Israel
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday that the 86th anniversary of Kristallnacht was “marked on the streets of Amsterdam” a day earlier when hundreds of Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer fans were attacked by anti-Israel mobs.
“Tomorrow, 86 years ago, was Kristallnacht, when Jews on European soil were attacked for being Jews. This has now recurred,” Netanyahu said referring to the events of November 9, 1938, a Nazi pogrom that marked a turning point in the escalating persecution of Jews that eventually led to the murder of 6 million European Jews by the Nazis and their supporters during the Holocaust.
“There is one difference now, though, the Jewish people now have a state of their own,” Netanyahu said in a statement during his visit to the Foreign Ministry’s situation room where he was briefed on Israel’s response to the widespread attacks in the Dutch capital, adding that those behind the attacks don’t just pose a risk to Jews but the entire free world.
The premier’s comments came as the first flight carrying Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer fans evacuated from Amsterdam after widespread violent attacks by mobs of anti-Israel rioters landed at Ben Gurion Airport on Friday afternoon, as the Foreign Ministry said that all Israelis in the Dutch capital had been accounted for.
A number of the fans said they had been attacked or made to feel unwelcome long before the widespread and apparently organized attack in Amsterdam on Thursday night following a game against Ajax.
Israeli officials said 10 citizens were injured in the overnight violence, apparently perpetrated largely by local Muslims and Arabs. According to reports, all Israelis injured in the attacks have been released from hospital in Amsterdam.
Hundreds more Israelis huddled in their hotels for hours, fearing they could be attacked.
On Friday, members of the local Jewish and Israeli communities scrambled carpools to escort the fans to the airport amid concerns they could be assaulted while en route to evacuation flights.
El Al said that three planes would bring Israelis home and will land in Israel between Friday evening and early Saturday, with paramedics and other medical personnel on board to treat those who needed it.