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Israeli tourists assaulted at Dutch holiday park

The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem urged the Dutch government “to come to its senses and act resolutely to prevent attacks on Israelis in its territory.”

Amsterdam
Anti-Israel protesters block a road near Amsterdam on April 15, 2024. Photo by Canaan Lidor.

Two Israeli tourists were violently assaulted on Thursday at Center Parcs De Kempervennen in North Brabant Province, the Netherlands, and required hospitalization.

The initial report by the Dutch Jewish media outlet Jonet was verified for JNS by the Center for Information and Documentation Israel (CIDI), the Dutch watchdog monitoring antisemitism, which said it had obtained confirmation of violence involving two Israelis at the park.

According to Dutch media reports, the visitors were attacked by local residents inside the holiday park. Both were evacuated with injuries and treated at a hospital in Eindhoven.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry posted on X that it was “monitoring and handling this attack through the Embassy of Israel in The Hague,” calling on the Dutch government “to come to its senses and act resolutely to prevent attacks on Israelis in its territory, to locate the criminals, and to bring them to justice.”

The attack raised concerns of coordinated harassment campaigns targeting Israelis in the country.

On Wednesday, the Center Parcs de Eemhof vacation park in Zeewolde, a town about 30 miles east of Amsterdam, acknowledged that Israelis staying there had been secretly filmed by anti-Israel activists who published the videos online with calls to target the Israelis and their whereabouts.

A spokesperson for the park told the Omroep Flevoland broadcaster that management was “shocked” by the videos, which have circulated on the social media accounts of at least five anti-Israel groups, including the Amsterdam branch of Students for Justice in Palestine, according to the report.

The incident is the latest in a disturbing surge of antisemitic and anti-Israel violence across Europe since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre. Jewish communities from London to Paris to Berlin have reported record levels of harassment, vandalism and physical assault, with watchdog groups warning that anti-Israel activism is increasingly blurring into outright Jew-hatred.

“Violence against Israeli tourists is unacceptable and symptomatic of a climate in which hatred of Israel too easily spills into hatred of Jews,” CIDI said. “Authorities must act decisively to ensure that Dutch Jews and Israeli visitors alike can live and travel here in safety.”

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