British police are investigating the burning of 4 ambulances belonging to a Jewish organization

Four ambulances belonging to a Jewish organization were set alight on Monday morning in London in what British police are investigating as an anti-Semitic hate crime. Investigators were working to determine whether the claim of responsibility from a group with alleged links to Iran is true.

Although it has not been classified as a terrorist incident, anti-terrorist police have been put in charge of the investigation. No one was injured in the nighttime incident, which shattered windows in nearby homes and left cars as charred shells.

Religious and political leaders condemned what British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called a “horrific” and lawless attack.

“Antisemitism has no place in our society and it is very important that we all come together at a time like this,” said Starmer, who met Jewish community leaders at 10 Downing Street on Monday to discuss the response to the attack.

Police were called to Golders Green, a north London area with a large Jewish population, after receiving reports of a fire, the Metropolitan Police said. Four ambulances from Hatzola Northwest, a volunteer organization that provides emergency medical services, were damaged, according to the London Fire Brigade.

The air cylinders in the cars exploded, shattering the windows of a nearby apartment. Nearby homes were evacuated as a precaution.

What appeared to be security camera footage showed three people wearing black hats carrying a can towards one of the ambulances before flames erupted around the vehicle. The police said they are looking for three suspects, but no one has been arrested yet.

The accuracy of the claim under investigation

A video posted on Telegram, allegedly by an Islamist group called Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia, showed a map of the area where the ambulances were kept and images of them burning. The group of the same name, which translates as the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right, previously claimed responsibility for synagogue attacks in Belgium and the Netherlands.

The Israeli government has called it a newly formed group with alleged links to pro-Iran networks.

Police said they are aware of the online claim of commitment and are working to establish its authenticity.

“Determining the veracity of this claim is a priority for the investigative team,” said Security Minister Dan Jarvis.

Mark Reisner, who lives next door, heard a loud explosion and arrived at the scene “where the third ambulance exploded,” he told Sky News.

“The explosion was so big, you felt it go through your gut,” he said of the incident. “It just leaves us all confused and shocked.”

The attack spread fear and terror in the British Jewish community, which feels extremely vulnerable.

Shomrim, a neighborhood watch nonprofit organization in the area, condemned X’s attack as a “targeted and deeply connected incident that affects the vital emergency aid to the local Jewish community.”

A growing increase in antisemitic incidents

The number of anti-Semitic incidents reported across the UK has increased since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and Israel’s subsequent war against Hamas in Gaza, according to the Community Security Trust, which works to protect the Jewish community. The group recorded 3,700 incidents in 2025, up from 1,662 in 2022.

In October 2025, an attacker drove his car into people gathered outside a Manchester synagogue to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur and stabbed one person to death. Another person died when he was attacked after being shot by the police.

Last week, two men in London were charged with “hostile” surveillance last year against the UK Jewish community on behalf of Iran.

Some members of the public criticized Starmer’s Labor Party government for failing to prevent Palestinian protests from escalating into anti-Semitic rhetoric and actions.

Peter Zinkin, a Conservative politician who represents Golders Green on the local council, said the community was feeling “distress and anger.”

“The burning of ambulances in the middle of the night is shameful,” he said. “And you have to ask yourself, why did it happen? And the reason I’m afraid it happened is that the government and the media, especially certain parts of the media, have sanctioned racism across the country.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally, head of the Church of England, said “such acts of violence, hatred and intimidation have no place in our society.”

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, head of Orthodox Judaism in Britain, he called it a “sick attack.”

“At a time when Jewish communities around the world are facing an increasing pattern of these violent attacks, we will meet this time with a shared determination and stand against hatred and intimidation,” he wrote in X.