The incidents passed off as officers expressed solidarity with Israel throughout its warfare with Hamas
Israeli flags have been torn down and set on hearth in a number of cities throughout Germany, native media reported, citing police and officers. The flags had been hung outdoors metropolis halls and different public buildings in solidarity in Israel, which got here underneath a lethal assault by the Gaza-based Hamas militant group on October 7.
In North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Wurttemberg states alone, assaults in opposition to the flags had been recorded in at the very least 12 cities, in line with the information program Tagesschau. On Monday night time, a person eliminated the Israeli flag hoisted on a pole outdoors the town corridor in Aachen and set it ablaze. In Witten, the flag was taken down twice, most lately on Friday night time, whereas the flag hoisted outdoors a Protestant church in Dangerous Saeckingen was pelted with eggs.
Police informed Bild newspaper {that a} drunk man in his 50s had tried to tear down the flag within the metropolis of Pirna (Saxony), however was stopped by the officers. The Israeli flags had been taken down, stolen or destroyed in Mainz (Rhineland-Palatinate), Erfurt (Thuringia), Stralsund (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania), and Stade (Decrease Saxony), amongst different locations.
“I strongly condemn the assault in opposition to our metropolis corridor and hope that the police will examine [the incident],” Stade Mayor Soenke Hartlef mentioned. He added that the town would “proceed to indicate our solidarity with Israel and let the flag fly on the historic metropolis corridor regardless of and exactly due to this assault.”
In some circumstances, the officers managed to determine the perpetrators. In Schwerin (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania), the suspect is a 17-year-old man of Iraqi origin, who acted in a gaggle of individuals, a few of whom “with migrant background,” police mentioned.
Stealing and desecrating nationwide flags is a prison offense in Germany, punishable by as much as three years in jail. Along with the actions in opposition to Israeli flags, police mentioned on Wednesday that swastikas and the phrases “Kill the Jews” had been written on the fragments of the Berlin Wall.
Germany has seen a wave of anti-Semitic incidents since final week as politicians and officers are voicing assist for Israel within the wake of the lethal assault by the Hamas militant group, which killed greater than 1,300 Israelis. Israel responded by airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, killing 2,750 individuals, in line with Palestinian officers.
Professional-Palestinian demonstrations have been banned in a number of German cities out of worry of the expression of extremist sentiment.
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