Several arrests over German synagogue attack threat: source close to case

German police have arrested “several people” over a threat of an attack on a synagogue on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, a source close to the case told AFP Thursday.

The arrests followed a huge police deployment late Wednesday at the synagogue in the western city of Hagen, which was forced to cancel an event over the threat.

German police had said late Wednesday there were “indications of a possible dangerous situation in relation to a Jewish institution” but later gave the all clear.

Both Spiegel weekly and Bild daily reported without quoting sources that a foreign intelligence service had passed on a tip that a 16-year-old Syrian was planning an explosives attack on a synagogue.

The case revived fears of a repeat of an attack against a synagogue in 2019, when a neo-Nazi gunman sought to storm the Jewish temple while worshippers were inside marking Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year.

A bolted door at the synagogue in Halle was the only thing that prevented the attacker from carrying out the bloodbath. After failing to gain entry, he shot dead a female passer-by and a man at a kebab shop.

Anti-Semitic crimes have risen steadily in Germany in recent years, with 2,032 offences recorded in 2019, up 13 percent on the previous year.