Seven arrested over March bombing of Belgian synagogue

Counterterror raids lead to arrests of unidentified suspects in attack that harmed Great Synagogue in Liege, amid rash of attacks on diaspora Jews during Iran war

Seven people were detained on Thursday over a bomb attack on a synagogue in Belgium in March, shortly after the start of the Middle East war, the federal prosecutor’s office said.

The blast, which shattered windows and damaged the main door of the Great Synagogue of Liege, in eastern Belgium, was condemned by the government as a “despicable antisemitic act.”

A wave of raids led by a Belgian anti-terrorism judge on Thursday led to the arrest of seven suspects, who have not been named.

The federal prosecutor’s office declined to provide any details about where the police operations took place.

“At this stage, and in the interest of the investigation, no further information can be released,” the office said.

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The Liege attack was followed a few days later by at least two similar criminal acts targeting Jewish sites in the neighboring Netherlands, including a Jewish school in Amsterdam.

Two teens were also arrested later in March for a suspected antisemitic torching of a car in Antwerp, amid a rash of attacks on Jewish communities in Europe and elsewhere since the start of the US-Israeli war with Iran on February 28.

In several cases, claim-of-responsibility videos have circulated on social media, shared by groups identified as pro-Iranian, but no official link has been established among the attacks.

The Great Synagogue reopened two months after the blast, according to Belgium’s national Belga News Agency.

Built in 1899, the synagogue also serves as a museum for the history of Liege’s Jewish community.

Antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiments have skyrocketed in Belgium since the start of the war sparked by the devastating Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

Attacks such as verbal abuse, intimidation, physical violence and graffiti continue to occur in the 30,000-strong Jewish community on a weekly basis, Ralph Pais, vice-chair of the Jewish Information and Documentation Centre (JID), said in December.

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