Two Jewish men stabbed in London in what police call terrorist incident

By Issy Ronald, Jomana Karadsheh, Florence Davey-Attlee, CNN

London (CNN) — Two Jewish men were stabbed in broad daylight in a leafy suburb of north London on Wednesday in what police described as a terrorist incident, further rattling a Jewish community already reeling from a series of antisemitic attacks in the UK’s capital city.

A 45-year-old man, who is also accused of trying to stab police officers, was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, the Metropolitan Police said in a statement.

Two men – one in his 70s and one in his 30s – were injured in the attack in Golders Green and are in a stable condition in hospital, police added. No officers were injured in the attack, which police responded to at 11:16 a.m.

“This has now formally been declared a terrorist incident,” London’s head of counter terrorism policing, Laurence Taylor, said in a statement later on Wednesday, adding that police are investigating “whether this attack was deliberately targeting the Jewish community in London.”

Counter-terrorism officers are leading the investigation and working to establish the suspect’s nationality, background and any terrorist links, police said.

Security camera footage, obtained by CNN, shows the victims being attacked. One person was standing beside a bus stop, putting on his kippah, when a man shoves him against a sign and repeatedly stabs him. The other was walking down a street when he was attacked, and yelled at the suspect before managing to run away.

Once police arrived, the suspect walked towards officers, who eventually tasered and detained him, according to videos filmed by local residents.

Police had cordoned off large swathes of the road by the time CNN reached the area, and several emergency service vehicles, including an ambulance and police helicopter, were in attendance.

London’s Jewish community has been targeted by a wave of antisemitic attacks in recent weeks. In the wake of such violence, this attack left one local resident “very shocked and, perhaps even more troubling, not surprised.”

“It’s an impossible scenario where the Jewish community day after day is being attacked,” David Meyer, the CEO of Jewish educational organization PaJeS, told CNN.

“It’s not acceptable that people cannot walk along the street without fear of being attacked,” he said, adding that he is afraid of that fear “becoming normalized.”

Wave of antisemitic attacks

This stabbing is the latest in a string of attacks targeting synagogues and other communal buildings, which have left London’s Jewish community in a heightened state of anxiety.

Last month, arsonists set fire to four ambulances belonging to a Jewish charity in Golders Green, north London. Four people were subsequently charged by police.

Weeks later, a synagogue and the former premises of a Jewish charity, both in north London, were attacked.

“We feel very unsafe, knowing that we’re going to the synagogue every day and attackers are walking by and stabbing people,” Avi Yodaiken, who has lived in Golders Green for 20 years, told CNN.

He knew one of the victims, he said, who was “just going to… the synagogue and he came out and he was stabbed.”

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer described the “antisemitic attack” as “utterly appalling.”

“We all need to… be absolutely clear in our determination to deal with any of these offenses, the like of which we’ve seen too much recently,” he told parliament.

He also thanked the local charity security group Shomrim, Hatzola – a Jewish ambulance service – and the police for responding so quickly.

Meanwhile, Israel’s President Isaac Herzog said he was “horrified by yet another violent attack on Jews in broad daylight on the streets of London” and called on the British government to “take urgent and immediate action before the next antisemitic attack occurs.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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CNN’s Lianne Kolirin and Magdalena Vitores Moreno contributed reporting.