Suspected arson hits London Jewish ambulance service

Four ambulances belonging to Hatzola Northwest, a Jewish community emergency service, were set aflame in London on Sunday night.

“Officers remain on scene and the arson attack is being treated as an antisemitic hate crime,” the Metropolitan Police wrote in a statement about the incident on Highfield Road in Golders Green, a heavily Jewish neighborhood in the British capital’s north.

No injuries have been reported and all the fires have been put out, the police said.

“We know this incident will cause a great deal of community concern and officers remain on scene to carry out urgent enquiries,” the statement quoted Superintendent Sarah Jackson, who leads policing in the local area, as saying.

There have been no arrests in connection with the incident at Hatzola, police said, “and we would urge anyone with information to please contact us as soon as possible.”

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer wrote on X: “This is a deeply shocking antisemitic arson attack. My thoughts are with the Jewish community who are waking up this morning to this horrific news. Antisemitism has no place in our society.”

A spokesperson for Israel’s embassy to the United Kingdom wrote on X following the incident: “Antisemitism is rampant on the streets of London. Firebombing ambulances is not an anomaly, it is the consequence, after years of hate-filled marches, incitement and intimidation being tolerated in plain sight.”

The embassy spokesperson added, “There must be a through investigation and decisive action to put an end to this climate of intimidation before it spirals further.”

British Chief Rabbi Epharim Mirvis said in a statement that the apparent targeting of Hatzola, whose name means “rescue” in Yiddish, “by people so committed to terror, hatred and the desecration of life is a most painful illustration of the ongoing battle between those who sanctify life and those who seek to destroy it.”

The president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Phil Rosenberg, said in a statement: “Ambulances, like those of the wonderful Hatzola organisation, point to the Jewish obligation to ‘choose life’. By contrast, the despicable individuals who committed an arson attack on ambulances in Golders Green this morning show the emptiness of their cause.”

British Jews recorded 3,700 antisemitic incidents in 2025, constituting a slight increase over the previous year and the second-highest tally on record, the Community Security Trust (CST) watchdog group said last month.

The 2025 tally represents a 4% bump from the 3,556 anti-Jewish hate incidents recorded by CST in 2024. Last year’s total was 14% lower than the highest ever annual total of 4,298 antisemitic incidents reported in 2023.

© JNS