UK police probe attack on Jewish ambulances

British police said they were investigating an online claim of responsibility for an arson attack after four volunteer ambulances run by a Jewish organisation next to a London synagogue were set on fire early Monday.

Counter-terrorism police have been tasked with the inquiry after the attack, which was denounced by Prime Minister Keir Starmer as a "deeply shocking antisemitic arson attack". Here is what we know:

- What happened? -

The London Fire Brigade said it was alerted to vehicles on fire at Highfield Court in Golders Green, a north London area with a substantial Jewish population, at 1:40 am (0140 GMT).

Some 40 firefighters called to the scene found that the cylinders stored on the vehicles had exploded, breaking windows in a nearby building.

London's Metropolitan Police force said the charred vehicles were four ambulances belonging to the Jewish Community Ambulance service.

Nearby homes were evacuated as a precaution. All the fires were extinguished by around 0300 GMT.

The little-known Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya (HAYI) group, meaning The Islamic Movement of the People of the Right Hand, claimed responsibility for the attack in a video posted on its recently created Telegram channel.

The group, which the SITE monitoring service said was aligned with Iran, has also claimed similar attacks this month in Belgium and the Netherlands.

- Police probe -

Police said in a statement "the arson attack is being treated as an antisemitic hate crime".

Counter-terrorism police are now leading the inquiry, even though it has not yet been determined to be a terror attack.

"Establishing the authenticity and accuracy of this claim will be a priority for the investigation team," Detective Chief Superintendent Luke Williams said at the scene.

He added police were "CCTV footage appears to show three people in hoods pouring an accelerant on to the vehicles before igniting them and fleeing".

There have been no arrests yet, and police appealed for information.

- 'Horrific news' -

Starmer said in a post on X: "Antisemitism has no place in our society".

He called the attack "horrific news" and urged Britain's communities to "stand together at a moment like this".

Chief rabbi Ephraim Mirvis vowed: "We're not going to be intimidated by terrorists, and this was a terrorist attack."

Israeli President Isaac Herzog sent a message saying: "We in Israel care for every Jew everywhere in the world and embrace you at this difficult moment."

Shomrim North West London, a charity and volunteer neighbourhood watch group, branded the arson a "targeted and deeply concerning incident affecting a vital emergency service serving the local Jewish community".

It was "an attack on the safety, wellbeing, and resilience of our community," the group wrote on Facebook.

- Volunteer service -

The ambulances are run by Hatzalah, which was established in 1979 and is operated by volunteers.

It provides free medical transportation and emergency response to those living in north London.

"Our ... volunteer ambulance corps is an extraordinary service, whose sole mission is to protect life, Jewish and non-Jewish alike," Mirvis said on X.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting said the government would provide four replacement ambulances by Tuesday morning.

- Similar attacks -

Monitoring groups have reported an upsurge in both antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents in Britain in recent years, particularly during the recent war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

The Community Security Trust, a charity which tracks antisemitism in the UK, recorded 3,700 instances of anti-Jewish hate across the UK last year, a four percent rise on 2024, but down on 2023.

The most serious was an attack on a Manchester synagogue in October 2025, when two people were killed and three others seriously injured.

The group likened the attack to the similar incidents in Belgium, when a synagogue in Liege was attacked on March 9 and another in the Dutch port of Rotterdam on March 14. The following day, a Jewish school in Amsterdam was attacked. There were no injuries.

The Netherlands-based International Centre for Counter-terrorism said the claim for Monday's attack was being circulated on accounts linked to pro-Iran Shia militias.

But it raised "the question whether HAYI is a genuine terrorist group or merely serves as a facade for Iranian hybrid operations that enables plausible deniability", the centre wrote in its report.