Belgium has deployed soldiers to protect Jewish institutions in major cities, following a series of antisemitic attacks across Belgium and neighboring Netherlands, authorities announced Monday.
Armed troops were stationed in Brussels and Antwerp, with plans to expand the deployment to Liege, where a synagogue was targeted earlier this month in what officials described as an antisemitic explosion.
Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken said the move was necessary to restore a sense of safety.
“From today, we’re putting soldiers back on the streets in Brussels and Antwerp because safety is a basic right,” Francken said in a statement, adding that Jewish communities would be among the primary beneficiaries of the reinforced security presence.
The deployment, carried out in coordination with federal police, focuses on protecting synagogues, Jewish schools, and other communal institutions.
It comes amid a broader escalation in attacks targeting Jewish communities across Western Europe.
In the Netherlands, an arson attack struck a synagogue in Rotterdam earlier this month, while a Jewish school in Amsterdam was damaged in a separate explosion. Dutch authorities have arrested five suspects, aged 17 to 19, in connection with the Rotterdam incident.
No injuries were reported in either attack, but officials have warned of growing risks.
The incidents are part of a wider pattern that has raised alarm among European governments and Jewish organizations, particularly against the backdrop of ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
Security concerns intensified further after an antisemitic arson attack in London early Monday, in which four ambulances belonging to a Jewish volunteer emergency service were set on fire outside a synagogue in Golders Green. British authorities are treating that incident as a hate crime, with possible links to Iran-backed actors under investigation.
