62 arrested as result of football clashes in Amsterdam, say police
Amsterdam police made 62 arrests as a result of clashes that erupted in the Dutch capital overnight after a Europa League football match, reports AFP.
“In several places in the city, supporters were attacked, abused and pelted with fireworks. Riot police had to intervene several times, protect Israeli supporters and escort them to hotels,” said Amsterdam officials.
Social media platforms were flooded with unverified images purported to be of the violence, but confirmed details of the clashes were few, according to AFP.
Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, ordered two planes be sent to the Netherlands to bring the Israeli fans home. The first plane took off from Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv heading for Amsterdam on Friday.
The UN called the violence “very troubling” while Germany foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said it was “terrible” and “deeply shameful.”
Dutch media AT5 reported that numerous fights, as well as acts of vandalism, had occurred in the city centre. “A large number of mobile unit vehicles are present and reinforcements have also been called in,” it reported. “Young people also allegedly provoked the police”.
Unverified video on social media purportedly filmed on Thursday appeared to show some Maccabi Tel Aviv fans chanting in Hebrew: “Finish the Arabs! We’re going to win!”
According to AFP, the Israeli embassy in the US said “hundreds” of Maccabi fans were “ambushed and attacked in Amsterdam tonight as they left the stadium following a game”.
In another potential flashpoint linked to football, France are scheduled to face Israel in an international match at the Stade de France in Paris next Thursday. The French government said on Friday the match would go ahead as planned.
Key events
Halsema says “what happened last night is not a protest. It has nothing to do with protest or demonstration,” in response to questions about the context of last night’s violence.
Halsema says what happened was a crime and there is “no excuse” for the trouble last night.
Mayor of Amsterdam Femke Halsema says the clashes overnight were a terrible moment for her city.
“It’s against everything we’re proud of in Amsterdam. I’m very ashamed of the behaviour that was shown last night. This is nothing like Amsterdam,” she says.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency (UKMTO) said on Friday that a vessel was approached by a small craft on Thursday carrying armed personnel that came within three cables of the vessel. It labelled it a “suspicious approach”.
The incident was part of a larger sighting where the vessel observed nine to fifteen small craft in the area, approximately 53 nautical miles south west of Aden, Yemen, the agency said.
All crew members aboard the vessel were safe and the ship continued to its next port of call, it added.
62 arrested as result of football clashes in Amsterdam, say police
Amsterdam police made 62 arrests as a result of clashes that erupted in the Dutch capital overnight after a Europa League football match, reports AFP.
“In several places in the city, supporters were attacked, abused and pelted with fireworks. Riot police had to intervene several times, protect Israeli supporters and escort them to hotels,” said Amsterdam officials.
Social media platforms were flooded with unverified images purported to be of the violence, but confirmed details of the clashes were few, according to AFP.
Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, ordered two planes be sent to the Netherlands to bring the Israeli fans home. The first plane took off from Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv heading for Amsterdam on Friday.
The UN called the violence “very troubling” while Germany foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said it was “terrible” and “deeply shameful.”
Dutch media AT5 reported that numerous fights, as well as acts of vandalism, had occurred in the city centre. “A large number of mobile unit vehicles are present and reinforcements have also been called in,” it reported. “Young people also allegedly provoked the police”.
Unverified video on social media purportedly filmed on Thursday appeared to show some Maccabi Tel Aviv fans chanting in Hebrew: “Finish the Arabs! We’re going to win!”
According to AFP, the Israeli embassy in the US said “hundreds” of Maccabi fans were “ambushed and attacked in Amsterdam tonight as they left the stadium following a game”.
In another potential flashpoint linked to football, France are scheduled to face Israel in an international match at the Stade de France in Paris next Thursday. The French government said on Friday the match would go ahead as planned.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards killed four more militants during an operation in the country’s south-east region where jihadists killed 10 police last month, state media said on Friday, according to AFP.
The deaths were part of an “ongoing operation” in Sistan-Balochistan province, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Gen Ahmad Shafaei said, adding that a soldier was also killed, according to the official IRNA news agency.
Iranian forces launched a crackdown after jihadists from the Pakistan-based Jaish al-Adl group killed 10 police officers on 26 October – one of the deadliest raids in the region in recent months.
“The operation in Sistan-Balochistan will continue until the terrorists and criminals are eliminated,” Shafaei said on Friday, reports AFP.
On Tuesday, the Guards said eight members of Jaish al-Adl had been killed during security operations there. Local media reported that the mastermind of the 26 October attack had already been killed.
People in Gaza are enduring ‘almost unparalleled suffering’, says aid group
Sarah Johnson
People in Gaza have been pushed “beyond breaking point” with families, widows and children enduring “almost unparalleled suffering”, according to the secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council.
Jan Egeland visited Gaza this week and found “scene after scene of absolute despair”, with families torn apart and unable to bury relatives who had died. He said that Israel, with western-supplied arms, had “rendered the densely populated area uninhabitable”.
“This is in no way a lawful response, a targeted operation of ‘self-defence’ to dismantle armed groups, or warfare consistent with humanitarian law,” he said.
“The families, widows and children I have spoken to are enduring suffering almost unparalleled to anywhere in recent history,” he added. “There is no possible justification for continued war and destruction.”
Nearly two million people have been internally displaced in Gaza, according to the latest estimates from the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), and the population faces widespread shortages of food, water and medicine.
Families are still forced to move from one area to another. Areas designated by Israeli forces for evacuation and forcible relocation now cover 80% of Gaza. Palestinians are thus restricted to 20% of the strip and an Israeli brigadier general said this week that there was no intention of allowing people to return to their homes. Experts in humanitarian law have said that such actions amount to the war crime of forcible transfer.
In northern Gaza, a month-long renewed offensive and tightened siege has led to desperate conditions, with an estimated 100,000 people completely cut off from humanitarian aid.
The UN has condemned the “unlawful interference with humanitarian assistance and orders that are leading to forced displacement”.
Most aid remains blocked from leaving crossing points due to insecurity, active hostilities and widespread destruction. An average of 36 trucks a day crossed into Gaza in October, marking the lowest rate for a year.
Egeland, a humanitarian leader, former foreign minister and diplomat in Norway, said he witnessed “the catastrophic impact of strangled aid flows”; adding that people had gone for days without food and drinking water was nowhere to be found.
“There has not been a single week since the start of this war when sufficient aid was delivered in Gaza,” he said.
Uefa have released a statement on the attacks on football fans in Amsterdam last night:
Uefa strongly condemns the incidents and acts of violence that occurred last night in the city of Amsterdam before and after the Uefa Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv.
We trust that the relevant authorities will identify and charge as many of those responsible for such actions as possible. Uefa will examine all official reports, gather available evidence, assess them and evaluate any further appropriate course of action in accordance with its relevant regulatory framework.”
Israel plane to collect fans after Amsterdam football clashes
An Israeli plane on a mission to bring home football fans from Amsterdam after clashes in the Dutch city took off from Ben Gurion airport on Friday, the Israel Airports Authority said, according to AFP.
The plane, the first of two, would collect fans after the clashes that followed a Europa League match between Dutch club Ajax and Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv, authority spokesperson Liza Dvir told AFP.
Israeli transport minister, Miri Regev’s office said in a statement she had spoken to her Dutch counterpart about “the aerial rescue operation of Israeli citizens from Amsterdam”.
Regev asked Dutch transport minister, Barry Madlener, to give the planes permission to use Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport to “rescue the Israelis”. Regev also requested “safe transportation” for the evacuated Israelis from hotels to the airport.
The statement said the Dutch minister “expressed his sorrow for this ugly case” and that his government was working to ensure the safety of Israeli passengers, reports AFP.
Lebanon state media said the Israeli army on Friday detonated explosives planted inside houses in three border villages that have been battered by the Israel-Hezbollah war, reports AFP.
“Since this morning, the Israeli enemy’s army has been carrying out bombing operations inside the villages of Yaroun, Aitaroun and Maroun al-Ras in the Bint Jbeil area, with the aim of destroying residential homes there,” the official National News Agency said.
Five people injured after football fan attacks, say Amsterdam police
Police in Amsterdam on Friday said five people had been taken to hospital with injuries after riots erupted in the city centre after an Ajax-Maccabi Tel Aviv football game.
According to Reuters, police said they were also investigating reports of a possible hostage situation and of missing persons after the attacks on fans of the Israeli team, but could not give any confirmation.
European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, on Friday condemned the attacks on fans of Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv in Amsterdam.
“Outraged by last night’s vile attacks targeting Israeli citizens in Amsterdam,” von der Leyen said in a post on X, adding she had discussed the matter with Dutch prime minister, Dick Schoof.
Von der Leyen added:
I strongly condemn these unacceptable acts. Antisemitism has absolutely no place in Europe. And we are determined to fight all forms of hatred.”
Outraged by last night’s vile attacks targeting Israeli citizens in Amsterdam.
I just spoke with @MinPres Schoof.
I strongly condemn these unacceptable acts.
Antisemitism has absolutely no place in Europe. And we are determined to fight all forms of hatred.
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) November 8, 2024
Turkey’s Erdoğan hopes Trump will tell Israel to ‘stop’ war
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Friday that he hoped the US president-elect, Donald Trump, will tell Israel to “stop” its war efforts, suggesting a good start would be halting US arms support to Israel, reports Reuters.
“Trump has made promises to end conflicts … We want that promise to be fulfilled and for Israel to be told to ‘stop’,” Erdogan told reporters on a return flight from Budapest, according to an official readout.
“Mr Trump cutting off the arms support provided to Israel could be a good start in order to stop the Israeli aggression in Palestinian and Lebanese lands,” he was cited as saying.
Turkey has fiercely criticised Israel’s offensives in the Palestinian territory of Gaza and in Lebanon, and has halted trade with Israel as well as applied to join a genocide case against Israel at the international court of justice. Israel strongly denies the genocide accusations.
Trump’s presidency will seriously affect political and military balances in the Middle East region, Erdoğan said, adding that pursuing current US policies would deepen deadlock in the region and spread the conflict.