“Today we were victims of an attempted attack on the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm and its employees,” Israeli Ambassador to Sweden Ziv Nevo wrote on X on Wednesday, January 31 Kulman. “We will not be intimidated by terror,” he added.
For its part, the Stockholm police specified that they had been alerted “at 1:08 p.m. by the embassy, ??which had found an object that it considered dangerous”. An area around the object was cordoned off and “the device was destroyed by national deminers, and we believe it was activated,” the officer told Agence France-Presse (AFP). police officer, Daniel Wikdahl.
Swedish tabloids Expressen and Aftonbladet said it was a hand grenade, citing unidentified sources, while Aftonbladet said it was thrown over the fence surrounding the mission and that she had landed on the ground near the building. Forensic police went to the site to find possible traces and recover surveillance images in the area, Stockholm police said.
Rise of anti-Semitism
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson described the situation as “very serious.” “An attempted attack on an embassy is an attack both on those who work there and on Sweden,” he wrote on X.
At the end of October, the Swedish government pledged 10 million crowns (approximately 930,000 euros) to strengthen the security of Jewish institutions and congregations, following the rise in anti-Semitism in the wake of the war between Israel and Hamas. Over the two months following the start of the war between Israel and the Palestinian movement Hamas, 120 complaints for inciting anti-Semitic hatred were recorded in Sweden, according to police figures obtained by AFP.
In early December, Kristersson and members of his government took part in a march against anti-Semitism in central Stockholm. The leader said he was “very concerned that anti-Semitism is spreading in Sweden and other European countries.”
