Fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv stage a pro-Israel demonstration at the Dam Square in Amsterdam, Netherlands on November 07, 2024.
As incidents of both antisemitic and Islamaphobic abuse surge across Europe, a soccer match between Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax of Amsterdam sparked violence in the Dutch capital and a firestorm of controversy.
Investigators are still sorting through exactly what happened before and after the match, but according to officials, it included “rioters who actively sought out Israeli supporters to attack and assault them” and inflammatory and violent actions by some of the Israeli fans.
Officials issued an emergency decree banning all protests in the city, which will remain in effect through Thursday, boosted security at Jewish sites and prohibited the use of certain face coverings.
This is what we know about how the events unfolded.
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Wednesday, Nov. 6
Maccabi Tel Aviv fans began arriving for the game in the Europa League, the second-biggest Europe-wide club soccer competition behind the Champions League. (Israeli clubs have played in UEFA competitions since 1992.)
Amsterdam’s municipal security committee said that the game was not high-risk “from a football perspective” and that there was “no animosity” between the two sets of supporters, according to an official report released Tuesday. The committee said it consulted with police, the teams, authorities on soccer hooliganism and European soccer’s governing body, UEFA, before the assessment.
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Ajax, the Netherlands’ most successful team, has historically drawn fans from Amsterdam’s Jewish community, and supporters sometimes carry Star of David flags to matches. The club also has many Muslim supporters.
While the evening passed relatively peacefully, police monitored aggressive messages on social media and messaging apps threatening Maccabi supporters, according to the report from the group of officials known as the triangle — Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema; René de Beukelaer, the city’s chief prosecutor; and Police Chief Peter Holla.
They saw “willingness to take action, and in a few cases also mobilization at a specific location,” the report added.
Around 11 p.m. local time (5 p.m. ET), four people were arrested after pro-Palestinian graffiti was sprayed at the Johan Cruyff Arena, where the game was set to take place Thursday, the report said.
Around 1,200 officers had been deployed in the city.
Thursday, Nov. 7
Early Thursday, a video posted to X and geolocated by NBC News to the Rokin, a major street in central Amsterdam, showed a crowd cheering as a man standing on a building’s awning ripped down a Palestinian flag.
Some in the crowd shouted “Ole” and “f--- you Palestine.”
A police car then slowly drove past, and the fans moved out of the way. It is unclear whether authorities acted afterward.
Referring to the incident, the official report said the group then split up, with some walking toward the city’s famed red-light district chanting slogans. Some in the crowd wore masks, according to the report.
Some had “taken off their belts” and attacked a taxi. Other taxis were “vandalized” nearby.
After online calls “for taxi drivers to mobilize” went out, some drivers headed to the Holland Casino, where 400 Israeli supporters were, according to the report. Police transported the fans away on buses.
According to the report, “relatively small” confrontations continued to break out around the casino.
Later, the triangle discussed canceling the game but concluded that was “untenable” because large numbers of fans were already in the city.
At 1 p.m. local, a large number of Maccabi supporters gathered in the city’s central Dam Square, where, the report said, “police were prepared.”
Video shared on social media and geolocated by NBC News showed Maccabi fans chanting anti-Arab slogans in front of the square’s National Monument.
Later Maccabi fans could be seen singing “Death to the Arabs” and “Let the IDF win. We will f--- the Arabs,” as well as tearing down another Palestinian flag.
Pro-Palestinian groups had initially planned to protest outside the Johan Cruyff Arena during the game, but Halsema, the mayor, said at a news conference Friday that she moved the demonstration to a remote location.
Amsterdam, like many cities across the world, has been the scene of large protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, which has killed more than 43,000 people, according to health officials in the blockaded enclave. Israel’s invasion of Gaza followed Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, in which about 1,200 people were killed and Palestinian militants took around 250 hostages.
Shortly before the game kicked off at 9 p.m. local time (3 p.m. ET), several videos posted to social media show Maccabi fans jeering, whistling and setting off flares during a minute’s silence for the victims of deadly flooding in Spain. A sign in the stadium read, “In memory of the flood victims in Valencia.”
That led to widespread criticism on social media, although several Israeli fans interviewed after the match said they had not heard the call for silence.
The game ended around 11 p.m. local time (5 p.m. ET). And after having watched their team get beaten 5-0, many Maccabi fans made their way back to their hotels and the city center.
Friday, Nov. 8
Within an hour of the match’s ending, security was falling apart.
Problems were expected partly because of social media messages “confirming that there are groups that are looking for a confrontation with Maccabi supporters,” according to Tuesday’s report. Officials cited screenshots from messaging apps that called for a “Jew hunt.”
Maccabi fans in the area were repeatedly targeted in “hit-and-run” assaults by pro-Palestinian ”rioters,” according to the report. Police struggled to quell the violence, and some of the fans were badly injured.
The report said that unlike in traditional hooliganism, in which people associated with rival clubs fight one another, the job of the police was made more difficult because rioters were moving in “small groups, on foot, by scooter or car, to attack Maccabi supporters briefly and then disappear again.”
A video verified by NBC News showed a man cowering on the ground. “I’ll give you my money,” he said. His attacker shouted back, “This is for the children! For the children, motherf----r. Free Palestine now.”
Other videos showed people being kicked and beaten in the street. It was not immediately clear who the attackers or the victims were.
Meanwhile, around midnight, a large group of Maccabi supporters was seen in the Dam Square area.
“Some walk with sticks in their hands and commit acts of vandalism,” the report said.
Video taken early Friday by Bender, a popular YouTube channel, showed a group of men, some wearing Maccabi fan colors, picking up pipes and boards from a construction site, then chasing and beating a man.
Around 2:45 a.m., the Israeli ambassador contacted Halsema, the mayor, and said there was “lots of anger” in Israel over the events in Amsterdam.
Videos posted to social media and verified by NBC News showed that as some Maccabi fans returned home to Tel Aviv Ben Gurion International Airport, some of them were singing, “Why is school out in Gaza? There are no children left there.”
The violence sparked international condemnation.
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said he was “horrified by the antisemitic attacks.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu compared the incident to Kristallnacht, or the “Night of Broken Glass,” Nov. 9, 1938, when Nazi mobs in Germany launched violent riots aimed at expelling the Jewish community and vandalized their homes, synagogues and businesses.
Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, the special U.S. envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, said the violence was “terribly reminiscent of a classic pogrom.”
In a post on X, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called the images emerging from Amsterdam “horrific & deeply shameful for us in Europe.”
UEFA, which organizes the Europa League, condemned the violence, saying it trusted authorities to “identify and charge as many of those responsible for such actions as possible.”
A total of 62 people were arrested on suspicion of public acts of violence, vandalism and disturbing public order, according to the official report. Forty-nine were Dutch and 10 were Israeli, and the nationalities of three are unknown, the triangle’s report said, adding that 45 were fined and four remained in jail. Two minors were “suspected of committing serious assault.”
Sunday, Nov. 10
After 24 hours of relative calm, police detained 50 people at a pro-Palestinian rally for ignoring a ban on protests in Amsterdam. Another 340 people were loaded onto buses and dropped off on the outskirts of the city.
Authorities later extended the protest ban until Thursday.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s office announced that he would attend a match between Israel’s and France’s national teams Thursday — a bid to promote “fraternity and solidarity” after the events in Amsterdam.
Israel, meanwhile, urged its citizens to avoid attending cultural and sports events abroad over the coming week.
Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that Israel had intelligence that pro-Palestinian groups abroad intended to harm Israelis in cities in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium and other countries.
Monday, Nov. 11
With tensions high, dozens of people set a tram on fire in Amsterdam on Monday night.
Video geolocated by NBC News showed a group throwing fireworks and other blunt objects at the tram, with some shouting “Cancer Jews.” Police said it was not clear who started the unrest and whether it was related to what happened last week.
Five new arrests were made over the weekend, police said Monday. The five men, all Dutch residents ages 18 to 37, are “suspected of public acts of violence against persons Thursday night,” they said.
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