Newsman: Dozens were arrested after the violence following a soccer match Thursday night between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax. Five people were hospitalized and dozens arrested in the Dutch capital Amsterdam, police said Friday, after what authorities said was violence targeting Israeli soccer fans. Israel’s national team is scheduled to play France in Paris on Nov. 14.
Israel has sent multiple commercial planes to evacuate its nationals out of Amsterdam, reversing an earlier plan to dispatch military planes. The first flight carrying some Israelis evacuated from Amsterdam after violent clashes following a football match there landed on Friday at Ben Gurion International Airport, the Israel Airports Authority said according to international media reports.
“The plane that arrived in Tel Aviv now has passengers evacuated from Amsterdam,” Liza Dvir, spokeswoman for the airport authority told AFP.
Four evacuation flights were to land on Friday and two more on Saturday,
Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema’s office described the events following the match between Dutch giants Ajax and the Israeli side, which the hosts won 5-0, as “very turbulent, with several incidents of violence aimed at Maccabi supporters.”
At a news conference Friday, Halsema said emergency measures had been put in place across the city, including a ban on demonstrations.
He said Thursday night’s events were a “shame” to the city, with local police saying that five people required hospital care, while 20 to 30 others suffered non-serious injuries. 62 people were arrested, police said.
“This outburst of violence toward Israeli supporters is unacceptable and cannot be defended in any way,” his office said in a separate statement published online. “There is no excuse for the antisemitic behavior exhibited last night by rioters who actively sought out Israeli supporters to attack and assault them.”
Israel’s embassy in Amsterdam said fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv were “ambushed and attacked” after the Europa League match as “mobs chanted anti-Israel slogans and proudly shared videos of their violent acts on social media.”
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said he was “horrified by the antisemitic attacks on Israeli citizens.”
Dutch Prime Minister described the violence as “completely unacceptable” and said he had spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by phone “to stress that the perpetrators will be identified and prosecuted.”
The hours prior to the game had seen a number of incidents that led to hundreds of officers being dispatched from across the country to assist with policing, the city’s acting police chief, Peter Holla, said during Friday’s news conference.
In one incident on Wednesday, he said, Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters had attacked a taxi and a Palestinian flag.
On Thursday, in the lead-up to the game, he said Israeli fans had gathered in a square, with pro-Palestinian demonstrators also gathering nearby — and he said authorities had difficulties keeping the two groups apart.
It was after the match that the violence ensued, he said.
Branding the violence an “antisemitic pogrom,” Israeli President Isaac Herzog said he trusted that authorities in the Netherlands would “act immediately and take all necessary measures to protect, locate and rescue all Israelis and Jews under attack, and to eradicate the violence against Jewish and Israeli citizens by all required means.”
European soccer’s governing body, UEFA, condemned the violence in a statement on Friday, saying that it trusted authorities to “identify and charge as many of those responsible for such actions as possible.”
UEFA said it planned to “examine all official reports, gather available evidence, assess them and evaluate any further appropriate course of action in accordance with its relevant regulatory framework.”
Thursday night’s events unfolded as Israel continued its deadly offensive in Gaza, where local officials say more than 43,000 people have been killed in the yearlong assault launched following Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attacks, in which Israeli officials say some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 others taken hostage.
Israel has also waged a monthslong offensive in Lebanon in its fight against Hezbollah, as members of the international community seek to avoid an all-out war in the region.
Those conflicts have sparked protests across the world, including at sporting events. A giant “Free Palestine” banner was unveiled at a Paris Saint Germain game on Wednesday, drawing criticism from France’s interior minister.
