WALTER BIERI/KEYSTONE VIA AP
People attend a vigil in Helvetia Square in Zurich, Switzerland. On Saturday night, a young man stabbed an Orthodox Jew.
WARSAW, Poland >> A teenager has been arrested on suspicion of stabbing and seriously injuring an Orthodox Jew on the streets of Zurich, Swiss police said Sunday.
Zurich police said in a statement that they suspected anti-Semitism was the motive for Saturday night’s knife attack.
Police said they won a report of an argument involving several other people at 9:35 p. m. According to their initial findings, the assailant attacked the 50-year-old man “and seriously injured him with a knife. “
Police described the assailant as a 15-year-old Swiss citizen and arrested him at the scene.
Later, police issued a statement saying they were beefed up security around some Jewish-connected sites as a precaution. They said they had made the decision in consultation with Jewish groups.
The Swiss Organization of Jewish Communities said it was “deeply shocked that a member of the network was the victim of such an attack. “
“Physical attacks on Jews in Switzerland are very rare,” he said. “The Jewish network has been spared such life-threatening attacks for the past two decades. However, there has been a significant increase in such physical attacks since October 7. .
Across Europe, anti-Semitic acts have increased since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, when Hamas-led militants stormed southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing another 1,200 people and taking about 250 more hostage. Since then, the number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 30,000.
In France, a man wearing a Jewish skullcap was attacked as he left a Paris synagogue on Friday night, police said.
Have comments? Learn more here.
Click here for our full information on the coronavirus outbreak. Submit your advice on coronavirus news.
Back to top