Authorities were reportedly attacked with homemade incendiary devices.
QUICK FACTS:
- Pro-Palestinian protests are being held across Europe, including a Berlin, Germany protest that resulted in over 100 arrests.
- The information comes from the German broadcaster NTC, which reported that hundreds of activists gathered in the borough of Neukölln to participate in an illegal riot.
- Berlin police posted on X that the protest led to violence and attacks on police from rioters using rocks, bottles, and makeshift fireworks.
- Numerous objects, including cars, were set on fire, prompting police to use water cannons.
- “According to current information, colleagues have been injured in the past few hours by stones, burning liquids and acts of resistance, among other things. But injuries also occurred to bystanders and people who resisted,” the post read. “We are now ending communication from the operation here and wish everyone a speedy recovery. Our emergency services will remain on site overnight.”
- Law enforcement authorities explained that emergency services “had to use pepper spray and force” while arresting suspects.
- Reporters on the scene claimed that protestors chanted “Free, free, Palestine” and “Viva, viva, Palestine.”
- By the time the event settled, 174 people had been arrested and 65 police officers were injured.
35. EHu vertreibt die Menge in Nebenstraßen. Dabei werden auch Pressevertreter:innen angegriffen. #b1810 pic.twitter.com/prS751K6zT
— StadtrandMedia (@StadtrandMedia) October 18, 2023
SYNAGOGUE PREVIOUSLY BOMBED:
- Amid the fray, two individuals threw Molotov cocktails at a Jewish synagogue in Berlin, at around 3:45 a.m. on Wednesday.
- “We are all shocked by this terrorist attack,” read a statement from the Central Council of Jews, Germany’s prominent Jewish organization. “Above all, the families from the neighborhood around the synagogue are shocked and unsettled. Words become deeds. Hamas’ ideology of extermination against everything Jewish is also having an effect in Germany.”
- German Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared, “It outrages me personally what some of them are shouting and doing, and I am convinced that Germany’s citizens are of the same opinion as me.”
- Rabbi Shlomo Afanasev explained that he no longer wants to be “openly Jewish,” due to concerns about being attacked.
BACKGROUND:
- After a Baptist hospital in Gaza was bombed, killing hundreds, media outlets were quick to blame Israel, although evidence from the Israel Defense Force (IDF) suggests it was a misfired Palestinian missile that caused the destruction.
- Drawing from data he received from the U.S. Defense Department, President Joe Biden said, “Based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you,” the “other team” being Hamas.
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “The entire world was rightfully outraged but this outrage should be directed not at Israel but at the terrorists.”
