Attacked Israeli football supporters back home
Gangs beat and kick Israeli football fans, leaving five people hospitalized.
Gangs beat and kick Israeli football fans, leaving five people hospitalized.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AFP) — A plane bringing Israeli football supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.”
Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a Europa League football tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv.
Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israel Airports Authority said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered the Mossad spy agency to draw up a plan to prevent unrest at sporting events in the future.
Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema said the city had been “deeply damaged” by “hateful anti-Semitic rioters” who hunted down and attacked fans of Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv in a night of “unbearable” violence.
Halsema described gangs on scooters targeting fans of the Israeli club, beating and kicking them in “hit-and-run” assaults, leaving five people hospitalized.
“This is an outburst of anti-Semitism that I hope to never see again,” Halsema said, adding that she was “ashamed” by the violence.
Despite a “sporting” atmosphere in the ground and a huge police presence, authorities were unable to stop the rapid attacks on fans in several parts of the city.
Fan Amit Ganor, 21, said he was attacked on the way from the railway station to his hotel.
“We were lucky enough to run and to manage to go to the hotel, but some guys in the streets weren’t able to do this so they got hit,” he told Agence France-Presse at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport.
“We came for a football match... We came to support our team and cheer them. The fact that I was attacked, only (for) being Jewish... makes no sense.”
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