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\nAn aerial view of the four ambulances that were set on fire overnight in London<\/p>\n
Police are investigating an anti-Semitic hate crime after an apparent arson attack on four ambulances belonging to the Jewish Community Ambulance service in London, the Metropolitan Police said.<\/p>\n
Officers were called to Highfield Road, Golders Green around 1.45am this morning after receiving reports of a fire.<\/p>\n
The police confirmed the incident is being treated as an anti-Semitic hate crime, while the London Fire Brigade said no injuries had been reported.<\/p>\n
Superintendent Sarah Jackson, who leads policing in the local area, said: “We know this incident will cause a great deal of community concern and officers remain on scene to carry out urgent enquiries.<\/p>\n
“We are in the process of examining CCTV and are aware of online footage. We believe we are looking for three suspects at this early stage.<\/p>\n
“There have been no arrests yet, and we would urge anyone with information to please contact us as soon as possible – you can do so anonymously if you wish.<\/p>\n
“We will be engaging with faith leaders and carrying out additional patrols in the local area as we continue our investigation to provide reassurance and a highly visible presence.”<\/p>\n
Police said reports of explosions are believed to be linked to gas canisters on board the ambulances.<\/p>\n
Nearby homes were evacuated as a precaution and road closures in the area remain in place.<\/p>\n
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer described the incident as a “deeply shocking antisemitic arson attack”.<\/p>\n
“My thoughts are with the Jewish community who are waking up this morning to this horrific news.<\/p>\n
“Anti-Semitism has no place in our society,” he said in a post on X.<\/p>\n
\nAn aerial view of the four ambulances that were set on fire overnight in London<\/p>\n
Shomrim, a non-profit organisation which operates a neighbourhood watch in the Golders Green neighbourhood, said it was “aware of loud explosions” early this morning.<\/p>\n
“Emergency services are on scene following a deliberate incident involving #Hatzola ambulances being set alight,” the group said in a post on X.<\/p>\n
“The explosions were caused by oxygen tanks not a bomb or explosive device. Although some buildings have been evacuated no casualties have been reported.<\/p>\n
“Please avoid the area while investigations continue.”<\/p>\n
Shomrim said Northwest London facility run by fellow Jewish charity Hatzola remained fully operational.<\/p>\n
Hatzola, which was established in 1979 and is run by volunteers, provides free medical transportation and emergency response to those living in North London.<\/p>\n
The fire brigade said around 40 firefighters were called to the fires and that multiple cylinders on the vehicles had exploded, causing windows to break in nearby flats.<\/p>\n
Golders Green ward councillor Dean Cohen, who was at the scene, told Jewish News the fact the incident was taking place in the “car park of a synagogue is particularly chilling and will send shockwaves through our community at a time of already heightened fears over anti-Semitism in the UK”.<\/p>\n
He said: “It’s beyond time for the authorities to wake and do more to tackle this hate running riot.”<\/p>\n
Community Security Trust (CST), a charity which monitors anti-Semitism in the UK, confirmed in a statement on X that it was assisting police in their enquiries.<\/p>\n
The statement said: “We are aware of multiple Hatzola ambulances that have been deliberately set alight in London.<\/p>\n
“This has obvious comparison to similar anti-Semitic arson attacks recently in Belgium and the Netherlands.<\/p>\n
“No injuries have been reported at this time and we are helping @MPSBarnet with their enquiries.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police are investigating an anti-Semitic hate crime after an apparent arson attack on four ambulances belonging to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-360572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}