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Britain’s largest police force has deployed 1,000 officers across London to protect communities after escalating bloodshed in Israel and Gaza led to a “massive” surge in anti-Semitic incidents and rising communal tensions.
Hamas launched its largest attack on Israel in decades last weekend, triggering days of Israeli retaliatory bombings.
Lawrence Taylor, deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said on Friday that there had been 105 anti-Semitic incidents in London since September 30, 75 of which amounted to criminal offences.
He revealed at the press conference that 14 incidents and 12 violations occurred in the same two weeks last year.
“It’s a huge increase,” Taylor said, adding that while cases of Islamophobia have also increased, it’s “on a completely different scale.”
Taylor said London’s Metropolitan Police would deploy an additional 1,000 officers in response to pro-Palestinian protests planned for Saturday in the capital, with police expecting thousands of people to march on Parliament Square.
He warned that anyone expressing support for Hamas would be breaking the law and risking arrest. Hamas is listed as a terrorist organization in the UK.
“We will not tolerate the celebration of terrorism and death,” he said.
Former Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal called for an international “day of rage” in support of the Palestinians, and three Jewish schools in north London were closed on Friday over fears of violence.
Taylor said the Jewish community is “understandably worried about its safety.” But he added that he was not aware of any specific threats to schools in London.
He added that counterterrorism officials were also assessing the risk of an attack in the capital, but “the threat level has not risen at the moment”.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced on Thursday £3 million in funding for the Community Security Trust, a charity that provides security for schools, synagogues and other Jewish community buildings.
The funding comes after the CST recorded a 400% increase in anti-Semitic incidents since last Saturday compared with a year ago. They included a Jew being called a “dirty Jew” and people shouting “Death to Israel” while waving Palestinian flags outside a synagogue in north London.
“In many cases, the perpetrators of these shameful events are using the symbols and language of pro-Palestinian politics as rhetorical weapons to threaten and abuse Jews,” the CST said.
Tell Mama, a project that documents anti-Muslim abuse, said there has been a surge in Islamophobic incidents across the country since last weekend, with Arabs and Palestinians subjected to dehumanizing slurs in public or described online as ” Bloodthirsty” and “terrorist”.
In the five days ending October 12, the organization recorded 37 offline cases across the country, including three attacks, and 61 online incidents.
“Much of it contains dehumanizing, anti-Muslim language and tropes that equate the community with terrorism and violence,” Tell Mom said. The report noted that 30 attacks occurred during the same period last year.
Ben Gamal, the head of the Palestine Solidarity Movement, one of the groups planning Saturday’s protest in London, accused the major parties of “unconditional support” for Israeli retaliation in Gaza as “leading to There is widespread dehumanization of Palestinians in political discourse”. U.K”.
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