Since October 7th and the Hamas attacks in Israel, the German domestic secret service has observed an increase in anti-Semitic attacks and has expressed great concern that the situation is worsening.
The director of Germany’s domestic intelligence service said on Friday he was very concerned about the increase in anti-Semitic acts in the country motivated by the Hamas-Israel war, which was reminiscent of “the darkest stories in the country’s history.”
Since the bloody Hamas attack on October 7, in which more than 1,400 people died in Israel, mostly civilians who were massacred by bullets or burned alive, around 1,800 anti-Semitic crimes have been registered in Germany, said Thomas Haldenwang the magazine Spiegel.
“I fear that we will have to contend with this new wave of anti-Semitism for a long time,” the official added.
A situation that “could get worse”
The head of the domestic secret service, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, spoke of “alarm signals that indicate that the situation could get even worse.”
He gave the example of Jewish people’s houses that were “genuinely” marked with Stars of David. “We must prepare for the fact that Jews could become victims of acts of violence,” he said.
Recently, a Molotov cocktail was thrown at a synagogue in Berlin and several pro-Palestinian demonstrations were banned by German authorities because of the risk of anti-Semitic riots and violence.
According to the Hamas Ministry of Health, 7,326 people, mostly civilians, were killed in Gaza by Israeli bombings in response to the October 7 attacks.