A suspicious individual carrying an incendiary device was arrested on Friday night outside the Israeli embassy in Brussels.
According to Israel’s Foreign Ministry, local security forces detained the suspect after the embassy’s security personnel identified him in the area.
No injuries were reported, and Israeli officials believe a potential attack on the embassy was thwarted, according to Ynet.
Belgian authorities have not yet confirmed the arrest, or published details about the background of the suspect currently in detention.
The incident came only three days after Belgium’s foreign minister announced that his country would be recognizing a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly this month.
“Belgium will recognize Palestine during the joint initiative of France and Saudi Arabia,” Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot tweeted on Sept. 2, calling the move a “powerful political and diplomatic signal.”
However, noting “the trauma suffered by the Israeli people as a result of the terror attacks by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023,” Brussels’ top diplomat said that a royal decree that will formally recognize “Palestine” would only be signed after all captives are freed and Hamas is removed from power.
Prévot, a member of the Les Engagés center-left party, a junior coalition partner of Prime Minister Bart de Wever’s New Flemish Alliance Party, also announced a slate of 12 sanctions targeting the Jewish state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a subsequent statement labeled his Belgian counterpart a “weak leader,” writing on X that De Wever “seeks to appease Islamic terrorism by sacrificing Israel.
“He wants to feed the terrorist crocodile before it devours Belgium,” he stated. “Israel won’t go along and will continue to defend itself,” he added.
Late last month, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar rebuked Prévot over the latter’s support for the Palestinian Authority, saying that it “serves only the interests of the terrorists, not dialogue, not peace.”
Ramallah continues to compensate Palestinian terrorists and their families and inciting violence against the Jewish state, policies that stand in clear violation of its international commitments, Sa’ar said.
“Your support for a Palestinian state is clearly a support of a terror state, a basis for further attacks on Israel and October 7-like atrocities,” Israel’s top diplomat continued, referring to the Hamas-led massacres in 2023.
