A terrorist killed two and injured three others in a car ramming and stabbing attack outside a U.K. synagogue on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
The assailant first drove a vehicle into a crowd outside Manchester’s Heaton Park Synagogue at around 9:30 a.m. local time, then got out and stabbed a bystander, the Wall Street Journal reported. Police killed the attacker and arrested two individuals in connection with the incident, according to the New York Times.
Authorities have declared the incident a terrorist attack, BBC reported. Video footage shows an officer shouting “he has a bomb” and telling members of the public to move away from the suspect.
The synagogue, about three miles north of the city center, sits in Manchester’s northern suburbs, which are home to a large Jewish community. Officials in response are ramping up security at synagogues across the country, U.K. prime minister Keir Starmer said.
“The fact that this has taken place on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, makes it all the more horrific,” Starmer wrote in an X post. “My thoughts are with the loved ones of all those affected.”
Starmer, on Sept. 21, announced the United Kingdom’s recognition of a Palestinian state with no conditions. The move was denounced by the families of Israeli hostages who said it “dramatically complicated efforts to bring home our loved ones.”
The terrorist attack comes amid a surge in anti-Semitism across Europe. The United Kingdom had 1,500 anti-Semitic incidents in the first half of 2025, second only to the first six months of last year, according to the Community Security Trust. The European Commission likewise reported last year that “the conflicts in the Middle East have led to levels of antisemitism unprecedented since the founding of the European Union.”
German police on Wednesday arrested three suspected Hamas members for allegedly procuring weapons to carry out “assassinations targeting Israeli or Jewish institutions.” In February, four other suspected members of Hamas went on trial in Berlin for plotting attacks on Jewish institutions across Europe.
President Donald Trump has cracked down on rising anti-Semitism in the United States by withholding billions in federal funding from universities that fail to protect Jewish students on campus and revoking visas of foreign nationals linked to anti-Semitic activity.
“The antisemitic rhetoric that has been spewed by Hamas terrorist sympathizers has provided these terrorist groups with the space to invoke terror on the Jewish people,” Rep. Rick Crawford (R., Ark.), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee, said in a statement provided to the Washington Free Beacon.
“This should serve as another not-so-gentle reminder to the United States about what happens when you allow terrorist agendas any room to operate within your country,” Crawford added.
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