Amsterdam Bars Protests After Antisemitic Attacks on Soccer Fans

The violence erupted around a soccer match between Israeli and Dutch teams in Amsterdam on Thursday.

Amsterdam banned demonstrations over the weekend under an emergency order and mobilized additional police officers after what city officials described as antisemitic attacks on Israeli soccer fans during the week.

The order prohibited the wearing of face masks or face coverings and stepped up security at Jewish institutions. It also gave police the power to stop and search people.

This week’s violence unfolded over days around a soccer match on Thursday between Ajax, a Dutch team, and Maccabi Tel Aviv, an Israeli team. Tensions had mounted a day earlier when Israeli fans vandalized a taxi and burned a Palestinian flag in the city. After the game, people on scooters kicked and beat Israeli fans, sending some to the hospital.

The police in Amsterdam initially detained 62 people. By Saturday, most had been released and four were being held, according to Marijke Stor, a Dutch police spokeswoman. The four are all suspected of public violence, she said, adding that one is a 26-year-old who was arrested on Friday after the police identified him from CCTV footage.

“If people are released, it doesn’t mean they are no longer a suspect,” Ms. Stor said. “Other arrests can still be made, of course, because the investigation is still ongoing,” she added. Prosecutors have not charged anyone, she said.

The tensions had been building up in the city before Thursday’s match.

Pro-Palestinian protests were planned for that day. But on Wednesday, Amsterdam’s mayor, Femke Halsema, had banned demonstrations near the stadium in an effort to stave off violence.

Videos from Thursday showed Israeli fans shouting anti-Arab chants on their way to the match as the police escorted them near Amsterdam’s central train station to ensure their safety amid anger over the Gaza war. One of their chants said: “Why is there no school in Gaza? There are no children left there.”

The police deployed 800 officers to try to maintain order during the game. At the stadium, riot police and mounted officers kept pro-Palestinian groups and Israeli fans apart. Although the game went ahead without violence, there were confrontations in or near the city center.

The Dutch police said that some people riding scooters had kicked and beat Israeli fans in hit-and-run attacks on Thursday, while others pelted them with fireworks. Five Israelis were hospitalized with injuries and were later discharged, the police said, and 20 to 30 others sustained light injuries.

David van Weel, the Dutch justice and security minister, acknowledged that the police had been caught by surprise that the attacks on the Maccabi fans were carried out by small groups of people — rather than the kind of large clashes typically seen after soccer matches.

“Much to everyone’s surprise, what happened was there was a kind of manhunt for individual supporters moving around the city,” he said on a talk show on Friday evening.

Social media appears to have played a role in the attacks, the mayor, Ms. Halsema, said at a news conference on Friday. The authorities had seen a “rapid spread via Telegram groups,” she said.

“Telegram groups wherein people were discussing hunting Jews — so shocking and so reprehensible,” she told reporters on Friday.

Hateful discourse and incitement have often spread on the Telegram platform, which played a role in recent riots in Britain and arson at migrant housing centers in Ireland. In the past, Telegram has said it was making improvements to its features and moderating of posts.

Peter Holla, Amsterdam’s police chief, expressed shock at a news conference on Friday that “one of the largest deployments that we as Amsterdam police — with national assistance — have made in a year could not prevent this violence.”

Amsterdam on Thursday was also commemorating the 86th anniversary of Kristallnacht — the night in 1938 when Nazi troops organized regular Germans to loot Jewish businesses, burn down synagogues, and attack and arrest Jews in Germany.

Given the anniversary, Amsterdam’s mayor was worried about heightened tensions, her spokeswoman said on Saturday. But the country’s counterterrorism agency did not see any increased or specific threats, and the national threat level was not changed.

In a letter to lawmakers on Friday, Mr. van Weel, the justice minister, said he had ordered an investigation into whether there were any warnings from Israeli intelligence before the match.

Israel’s government, concerned about the safety of its citizens, warned soccer fans in Amsterdam to stay off the streets and to avoid wearing Israeli or Jewish symbols. It also helped arrange flights to bring Israeli citizens home.

Gideon Saar, Israel’s newly appointed foreign minister, traveled to the Netherlands on Thursday and met with the Dutch justice minister and Geert Wilders, whose anti-Muslim party is the largest party in the Dutch Parliament.

In a series of social media posts, Mr. Wilders has used the clashes to attack what he calls “radical Islam” in sometimes incendiary language.

On the other side of the political spectrum, Stephan van Baarle, the leader of DENK, a small pro-immigrant party, blamed the authorities for failing to stop what he called provocations by Israeli fans.

“Where were the police when Maccabi thugs chanted genocidal and racist slogans about Gaza?” he said in a video posted to the party’s website.

The Amsterdam police say they have launched a broad investigation and have asked members of the public to come forward with relevant images and information.

Rosanne Kropman contributed reporting from Amsterdam.