London<\/a> was being treated as an antisemitic hate crime.<\/p>\nThe ambulances were run by Jewish charity Hatzola, which was established in 1979 and is run by volunteers, providing free medical transportation and emergency response to those living in North London.<\/p>\n
The London fire brigade (LFB) said it had sent six fire engines and about 40 firefighters to the fire, which damaged four vehicles. Several cylinders on the vehicles exploded and caused windows to break in an adjacent block of flats, the LFB said. No injuries were initially reported.<\/p>\n
Health secretary Wes Streeting said in a post on X: \u201cThis is a sickening attack on Jewish ambulances. Thank goodness there appear to be no injuries.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyone with information should come forward to the police. We must stand together against antisemitic hatred.\u201d<\/p>\n
Police Supt Sarah Jackson, who leads policing in the area, said: \u201cWe know this incident will cause a great deal of community concern and officers remain on scene to carry out urgent inquiries.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe 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
\u201cThere have been no arrests yet, and we would urge anyone with information to please contact us as soon as possible \u2013 you can do so anonymously if you wish.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shomrim, a non-profit organisation which operates a neighbourhood watch in the Golders Green neighbourhood, said it was \u201caware of loud explosions\u201d early on Monday morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cEmergency services are on scene following a deliberate incident involving #Hatzola ambulances being set alight,\u201d the group said in a post on X. \u201cThe explosions were caused by oxygen tanks not a bomb or explosive device. Although some buildings have been evacuated no casualties have been reported. Please avoid the area while investigations continue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shomrim said Northwest London facility run by Hatzola remained fully operational.<\/p>\n
Dean Cohen, a Golders Green ward councillor who was at the scene, told Jewish News the fact the incident had taken place in the \u201ccar park of a synagogue is particularly chilling and will send shock waves through our community at a time of already heightened fears over antisemitism in the UK\u201d.<\/p>\n
Community Security Trust (CST), a charity which monitors antisemitism in the UK, confirmed in a statement on X that it was assisting police in their enquiries.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are aware of multiple Hatzola ambulances that have been deliberately set alight in London,\u201d it said. \u201cThis has obvious comparison to similar antisemitic arson attacks recently in Belgium and the Netherlands.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo injuries have been reported at this time and we are helping MPSBarnet with their enquiries.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four ambulances belonging to the Jewish community ambulance service have been set on fire in Golders Green, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-353518","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}