London Jewish Community Ambulances Set Ablaze in Suspected Hate Crime, Police Say

London police have opened an investigation into a suspected anti-Semitic hate crime incident after an arson attack on ambulances in a Jewish neighborhood.

The London Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) said in a March 23 statement that it was launching an investigation after four Hatzalah ambulances belonging to the Jewish Community Ambulance service were set on fire in Golders Green in the early hours of March 23.

Police say a blaze was reported on Highfield Road at 1:45 a.m. Nearby houses were evacuated and roads were closed as a precaution. No injuries were reported.

London Fire Brigade said in a statement that six fire engines and 40 firefighters had attended the incident, getting the blaze under control by 3:06 a.m.

“Officers remain on scene and the arson attack is being treated as an antisemitic hate crime,” the MPS statement reads.

The policing lead for the area, Superintendent Sarah Jackson, said investigators were examining closed-circuit television footage. She said at this stage of the investigation, the MPS is looking for three suspects.

Golders Green, in the borough of Barnet in northwest London, is known for its established, large Jewish community.

‘Sickness of Antisemitism’

Campaign Against Antisemitism condemned the attacks on the Hatzalah, saying that the volunteer ambulance service worked with the National Health Service to save lives and help everyone in the community—Jews and non-Jews alike.

“We are absolutely heartbroken that this is how low Britain has sunk,” said Gideon Falter, chief executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism. “This horrific act truly plumbs new depths.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism said in a statement: “Burning their ambulances in an attempt to put them out of action is a truly repulsive act of antisemitic hatred in a Britain where Jews now have to keep everything from schools to synagogues under constant guard.”

“Our society has become infested with the sickness of antisemitism,” the statement reads.

The Community Security Trust (CST), a charity whose mission is to protect British Jews from anti-Semitism and terrorism, collects data on anti-Semitic incidents. It reported that there are spikes in recorded incidents of anti-Jewish hatred against the British Jewish community when conflict occurs in Israel and the Middle East.

In 2024, the charity found that anti-Semitic incidents had tripled in the year since the Hamas terrorist group’s attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

The CST’s Antisemitic Incidents Report 2025, published on Feb. 11, states that last year, there were 3,700 incidents of anti-Jewish hatred across the UK, the second-highest annual total ever reported to the charity, with the highest number (4,298) having been logged in 2023.

Liege, Rotterdam, Amsterdam

CST chief executive Mark Gardner said in a post on X that the arson attack against the Hatzalah shows an “obvious parallel to similar recent anti-Jewish arson attacks in Liege, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam.”

Gardner was referring to a series of attacks in the Netherlands and Belgium that have taken place since the start of the Iran war on Feb. 28.

On March 14, two people set off an explosion outside a Jewish school in the Dutch capital of Amsterdam.

On March 13, Dutch police said they were treating an explosion that caused a small fire at the entrance of a synagogue in the port city of Rotterdam, Netherlands, as arson.

Before that, there was an explosion near a synagogue in Liege, Belgium, on March 9, which Belgian Interior Minister Bernard Quintin called “a despicable antisemitic act.”

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer described the incident ​in Golders Green as “deeply shocking.”

“My thoughts are with the Jewish community who are waking up this morning to this horrific news,” Starmer said in a post on X.

“Antisemitism has no place in our society.”

Israel’s embassy in the UK said in a post on X that anti-Semitism was “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 said in the statement.

“Enough is enough. There must be a thorough investigation and decisive action to put an end to this climate of intimidation before it spirals further. Silence and inaction are no longer an option.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.