Teenager arrested after Rotterdam synagogue blast; Reports say the suspects were hired as “foot soldiers”

Stephen J. By Bose, Worth News Europe Bureau Chief

Rotterdam, Netherlands (meaningful news) – Dutch police arrested four teenagers after an explosion damaged a synagogue in the port city of Rotterdam early Friday, raising concerns about anti-Semitism and threats against Jewish institutions.

Police detained a 17-, 18- and two 19-year-old suspects after an explosion damaged a synagogue building on the city’s ABN Davidsplein (ABN Davids Square) at around 3:40 a.m. local time on Friday, officials said. There is no information about anyone being injured.

Local media later reported that the suspects may have been hired as “foot soldiers” to plant the explosive devices.

The country’s largest daily Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf (The Telegraph), citing sources close to the investigation, indicated that teenagers were recruited and paid to carry out the attack.

Investigators are looking into whether the teenagers worked as “foot soldiers” in what De Telegraaf described as a growing criminal practice known as “crime as a service”.

Crime as a Service Model

Under this model, criminal networks recruit young people to carry out attacks – including placing explosives on buildings – sometimes for relatively little money.

The publication also reported that three of the four suspects are of Antillean descent, although authorities have not publicly confirmed details about their backgrounds.

Authorities are investigating whether the suspects were acting on behalf of a wider criminal or extremist network.

According to authorities, police detained the suspects after seeing a vehicle driving suspiciously near another synagogue in Rotterdam’s Hilligersburg district.

Officers stopped the car after reportedly detecting a strong smell of gasoline. According to investigators, one of the occupants matched the description to the earlier explosion, leading to the arrest of all four individuals.

Arrests were made near a synagogue

Authorities searched several homes in the southern Dutch city of Tilburg and seized digital storage devices as investigators tried to determine whether additional attacks were planned.

The Rotterdam bombings occurred amid a series of incidents targeting Jewish institutions in the Netherlands.

Early Saturday, an explosive device detonated near the exterior wall of the Orthodox Jewish Cheider School in Amsterdam’s Butenveldert district, causing damage but no injuries.

Amsterdam Mayor Famke Halsema condemned the attack as a “cowardly act of aggression against the Jewish community”.

Many of the incidents were claimed online by little-known groups using Islamic names, including the “Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right” (Ashab al-Yamin) and “Jamaat Ansar al-Islam”.

Jewish community worried

Authorities did not confirm whether those groups existed as organized networks or whether they were linked to the suspects.

These events have alarmed the Jewish population of the Netherlands, which is estimated to number between 30,000 and 40,000.

Chanan Hertzberger, president of the Central Jewish Council representing Jewish communities in the Netherlands, described the attack as a “physical manifestation of anti-Semitism”, warning that threats against Jews were rapidly increasing.

Dutch Justice and Security Minister David van Weel stressed that Jews “should feel safe in the Netherlands” and that authorities would not tolerate anti-Semitism or violence.

Yet Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar criticized Dutch officials after the attack.

global security concerns

“A synagogue was attacked in Rotterdam yesterday,” Saar wrote on social media. “But the Netherlands considered it more important to intervene in South Africa’s fabricated case against the State of Israel. Shameful!”

He noted the Dutch government’s decision to support proceedings at the International Court of Justice in a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of genocide during the war against Hamas in Gaza – allegations Israel strongly rejects.

Friday’s attack came amid heightened security concerns at Jewish institutions around the world following the outbreak of war between the United States, Israel and Iran on February 28.

Authorities and Jewish organizations say several synagogues have been targeted in recent days in North America and Europe, underscoring growing fears of anti-Semitic violence.

A day before the Rotterdam incident, a man drove a vehicle into a synagogue near Detroit in the US state of Michigan, in what authorities described as a targeted attack against the Jewish community.

saw the historical context

Security personnel shot and killed the suspect, while staff and about 140 children inside the synagogue’s early childhood center were safe.

Police in Norway also detained a suspect after a high-speed chase near a Trondheim synagogue, while authorities in Canada are investigating a recent shooting targeting a synagogue in the Toronto area.

Earlier last week, an explosion damaged a synagogue in Liège, Belgium, an incident described by the city’s mayor as “an extremely violent act of anti-Semitism.”

These attacks are particularly sensitive in the Netherlands, where about 75 percent of the country’s Jewish population was murdered during the Genocide – also known as the Shoah – one of the highest proportions in Western Europe.

Before World War II, approximately 140,000 Jews lived in the Netherlands, but only 35,000 survived the Nazi occupation.

Authorities have increased security around Jewish institutions across the country and continue a large-scale investigation into who may have organized the attacks.

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