By Sam Tobin and Sarah Young
LONDON, April 29 (Reuters) – Two Jewish people were stabbed in north London on Wednesday by a man who ran down a street trying to stab Jews, a local security group said, the latest in a spate of antisemitic attacks which Prime Minister Keir Starmer called “utterly appalling”.
The Jewish security group, Shomrim, said on X that a man was seen running with a knife in the Jewish area of Golders Green and attempting to stab Jewish members of the public, before its officers detained him. He was arrested by police.
The stabbings follow a spate of arson attacks on Jewish targets in London in recent weeks. Last October two people and the attacker were killed in an attack on a synagogue in the northern English city of Manchester.
In Golders Green, pictures from the scene posted online showed emergency services standing over what appeared to be a victim lying on the street. The BBC reported that two Jewish men were currently being treated for serious injuries.
SPATE OF ANTISEMITIC ATTACKS
A security video posted on a Telegram channel appeared to show a man attempting to stab a man in a traditional Jewish skullcap multiple times as he stands at a bus stop.
Shomrim said police used a taser to stop the attacker. London’s Metropolitan Police had yet to comment.
Over the last month, London police have arrested more than two dozen people as part of investigations into attacks on Jewish-linked premises, including the torching of ambulances and attempted arson attacks on synagogues.
The local lawmaker for the area, Sarah Sackman of Starmer’s governing Labour Party, said on X that she was meeting with the interior minister to discuss the urgent situation.
“The attacks on British Jews are an attack on Britain itself,” she said. “It is unconscionable that Jews are being targeted in this way.”
The incidents over the last month are being investigated for having possible Iranian links, amid warnings from security officials that Iran has sought to use criminal proxies to carry out hostile activity in the UK.
Pro-Iranian group Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiyya has claimed responsibility for some of the latest attacks on social media.
Britain had on Tuesday summoned the Iranian ambassador over what it called the Iranian embassy’s “unacceptable and inflammatory” comments on social media.
While Britain did not specify the comments, the Iranian embassy had called on Iranians in Britain to volunteer for a campaign to declare their willingness to sacrifice their lives for their country.
The number of antisemitic attacks in Britain has been on the rise in recent years, particularly in the wake of the October 2023 Hamas assault on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
(Reporting by Sarah Young; additional reporting by Muvija M, Sam Tabahriti, editing by William James and Kate Holton)
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