Calls for ‘Jew Hunt’ Preceded Attacks in Amsterdam

AMSTERDAM—Israeli financial adviser Ofek Ziv had just emerged from the metro, heading to the Dutch capital’s central Dam Square with a group of Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer fans, when he says he was struck in the back of the head with a rock. A firecracker exploded near him. Men in ski masks later appeared, wielding knives and bats.

The assailants, he said, “had fire in their eyes. They want to catch you.”

Ziv and scores of other Maccabi supporters had traveled to the Dutch capital for a match with local team Ajax on Thursday night. Little did they know that, earlier in the day, they had become a topic of discussion on popular messaging apps, where users were calling for a Jodenjacht, or “Jew hunt.”

From late Thursday and into the early hours of Friday, Dutch authorities said, mobs unleashed a wave of violence , chasing Israelis through the streets on motorbikes and beating them. The attacks came after videos circulated online of Maccabi fans pulling down a Palestinian flag and chanting about Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza . Police said 25 to 35 people were injured in Amsterdam.

The campaign was organized, Dutch authorities said, and the attackers were equipped with fireworks and moved quickly, targeting Israeli fans with “hit-and-run” assaults. Police said they were investigating who instigated the assaults and how they were coordinated.

More than 60 people were arrested before and during the soccer match, prosecutors said. Only one arrest has been disclosed since then. Four suspects, including two minors, remained in custody on suspicion of participating in violence, the prosecutors’ office said. Officials declined to identify the arrested suspects.

Maccabi fans interviewed by The Wall Street Journal said the violence came to a boil after two days in which they were stalked and harassed in Amsterdam—during a week that the Dutch commemorate Kristallnacht, when German Nazis attacked Jewish people and property on Nov. 9 and Nov. 10 in 1938. Some Maccabi fans said they saw taxi drivers using their phones to document their whereabouts.

Messaging app Telegram was used to talk about “going on Jew hunts,” Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema said. “This is so shocking and despicable that I cannot get over it yet. It is a disgrace,” she said.

A screenshot of a pro-Palestinian WhatsApp group chat, viewed by the Journal, called for a “Jew Hunt” on Thursday and referred to a standoff on Wednesday night in which a group of Israeli fans were cornered by a crowd that police said included taxi drivers who had responded to an online call to mobilize.

“They knew everything,” said Shachar Bitton, a 30-year-old Maccabi fan. “They knew exactly where we stayed. They knew exactly which hotels, which street we were going to take. It was all well-organized, well-prepared.”

Bitton was inside the glitzy Holland Casino on Wednesday—the night before the high-profile Maccabi-Ajax soccer match—when he saw two of his friends coming toward the blackjack and poker tables with bloodied faces.

Outside the casino, Bitton said, he saw around 200 people—many of them Arabic speakers, he said—waiting for the Israeli fans to leave the casino.

WhatsApp, a messaging app owned by Meta Platforms , said using the app to organize violence is against its rules and said it would respond to any valid legal requests.

Telegram said it had closed down a group chat that might have been linked to the events in Amsterdam and was prepared to cooperate with Dutch authorities. Telegram said it doesn’t tolerate calls to violence on its platform.

European cities with large Muslim populations have become tinder boxes of tension since the start of the war in Gaza. Authorities have recorded a surge in antisemitic acts since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the subsequent conflict in which more than 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed.

Amsterdam has been the scene of fervent pro-Palestinian protests, including one that occurred near the National Holocaust Museum when Israeli President Isaac Herzog attended its opening in March.

The city is steeped in Holocaust history. Amsterdam had a large and thriving Jewish population before the Holocaust. It is where Jewish teenager Anne Frank hid for years before she was arrested in 1944 and died in a Nazi concentration camp.

Supporters of the city’s Ajax soccer club often refer to themselves as “super Jews” and routinely display the Israeli flag or the Star of David at matches. Several Maccabi fans said warm relations with Ajax and its supporters was one reason they were looking forward to Thursday’s soccer match.

The same night, however, the nearby city of Alkmaar was also hosting a soccer game: its hometown club was playing against the Turkish team Fenerbahce. That meant droves of Fenerbahce’s pro-Palestinian fans were circulating through Amsterdam.

Meanwhile, thousands of Israeli soccer fans had poured into the city, many sporting the blue and yellow colors of Maccabi.

On Wednesday, fans of all three teams were involved in what police described as small clashes. Maccabi supporters pulled a Palestinian flag from a building and vandalized a taxi, police said. In another part of the city, a Palestinian flag was burned.

Videos circulated on social media of Maccabi fans chanting anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian slogans. One clip verified by Storyful showed crowds of Maccabi fans descending a metro station escalator and chanting in Hebrew, “Let the IDF win. F— the Arabs!” in a reference to the Israel Defense Forces.

Another video, also verified by Storyful, showed people removing a Palestinian flag as a crowd cheered and chanted: “F— you Palestine.” Storyful is owned by News Corp , the parent company of The Wall Street Journal.

Jazie Veldhuyzen, an Amsterdam city council member, said his party disputed the narrative that pro-Palestinian sentiment was what drove the unrest, citing the videos of Maccabi fans chanting about the war. “The unrest that followed was a reaction to this,” he said.

The Maccabi fans said they attracted attention even when they were trying to be discreet. Bitton said he arrived at the Holland Casino on Wednesday night without wearing any of Maccabi’s blue and yellow gear.

“We know how to just blend in. Wear all black, all white. And speak quietly. But we never imagined that what happened would happen,” he said.

Police said an online appeal went out for taxi drivers to mobilize at Holland Casino and confront the roughly 400 Maccabi supporters who had gathered there. Holland Casino later said it banned a security guard from the casino after it learned the person had sent messages to a chat group that were linked to the confrontation there, adding that it doesn’t tolerate violence or antisemitism.

Bitton meanwhile was inside the noisy casino playing cards until about 1:30 a.m. By the time he realized what was happening, the anti-Israeli crowd outside the casino had swelled to about 200 people, along with dozens of taxis and ride-hailing cars, he said.

Uber said there were no reported incidents of violence on any of the company’s trips. However, the company added it is supporting Dutch authorities’ efforts to identify offenders.

Police posted at the casino, Bitton said, refused to escort him and his friends to their hotel. “They said, ‘We’re not going to take you. Just keep walking. Whatever will happen, will happen,’” Bitton recalled.

Amsterdam police declined to comment on Bitton’s experience. On Friday, they said they avoided major confrontations by escorting many Maccabi fans out of the casino and to their hotels. Officials said they would investigate authorities’ preparations and actions.

At 3 a.m., Bitton said he left the casino in a group of 40 Maccabi supporters. For more than an hour, the men walked silently through the streets, followed by men on bikes who cursed at them and shouted, “Free Palestine,” he said. They were also followed by taxis and Mercedes-Benz sedans that are typically used by ride-hailing services, Bitton said. The drivers filmed the group as they walked.

“Don’t do anything. Don’t even look, don’t even stare. We don’t want to start anything,” Bitton recalled telling the group. “We immediately knew that if they’re going to film, they might be sending some others to wait for us.”

WhatsApp was indeed buzzing with chatter. The screenshot viewed by the Journal of a group chat titled “Community Center” with a string of Palestinian flags showed a message in Dutch that called for a “PART 2 JEW HUNT” to take place after the Maccabi-Ajax match.

Another message thanked a member of the chat in Arabic for updating the group about the Israelis’ movements, adding in Dutch: “bro your tip was worth gold.”

Police said they were prepared for the possibility of further clashes on Thursday, as the Maccabi soccer game approached.

A large group of Maccabi supporters gathered downtown in the early afternoon, where fireworks were set off and small fights broke out. Police redirected a pro-Palestine demonstration away from the soccer stadium, they said, although some of the participants broke off in small groups in search of confrontations.

Fans of the Dutch Ajax team who tried to go to the place where the pro-Palestine demonstration had been relocated were stopped, police said.

Video from inside the stadium circulated on social media showing Maccabi supporters making noise during a minute of silence for the victims of the recent floods in Spain’s Valencia region . Sagiv Barazani, a 24-year-old Israeli who attended the match, said the Maccabi fans were initially unaware of the moment of silence because it had been announced in Dutch.

Ziv, the financial adviser, said the atmosphere in the stadium was peaceful. He and other Maccabi fans serenaded Ajax and its supporters after the match ended.

“We really have a connection” with the Ajax fans, Ziv said. “Even though we lost five nil.”

Write to Stacy Meichtry at Stacy.Meichtry@wsj.com , Kim Mackrael at kim.mackrael@wsj.com and Anat Peled at anat.peled@wsj.com