Detectives in London arrested a 55-year-old man on Thursday, on suspicion of arson and racially aggravated harassment.
The man is suspected of having set fire to the car of a Jewish woman, aged in her 30s, on Monday, November 6, and then of harassing her on the street on Tuesday, November 21.
The victim was not harmed, police said, but Detective Sergeant Chris Church called the incident “a terrifying experience for the victim who was just going about her day.”
The suspected hate crime comes amid a wave of antisemitic incidents in the UK and around the world, following Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel and the subsequent war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
Incident is part of a pattern
Authorities recorded 408 antisemitic incidents in London within two weeks of Hamas’s attack, compared to only 28 in the same period last year. Anti-Muslim incidents also spiked, with 174 offenses recorded, compared to the previous year’s 65.
“We simply won’t tolerate hate crime,” the Sergeant said in a statement released by the Metropolitan Police. “Those who commit such abhorrent crimes will be prosecuted.”