London police declare terrorist incident after 2 Jewish men stabbed in UK

Two Jewish men were stabbed in Golders Green and police arrested a 45-year-old suspect. The attack, treated as terrorism, intensified alarm over antisemitic violence in London.

In Short

• 45-year-old suspect arrested, has violent and mental health history
• Attack linked to recent arson on synagogues and Jewish sites
• Antisemitic incidents rise sharply post Israel-Gaza conflict

Two Jewish men were stabbed and injured on a London street on Wednesday, in what police called an act of terrorism. Police arrested a 45-year-old man on suspicion of attempted murder in the city's latest antisemitic attack.

The Metropolitan Police said the attack in the Golders Green area left two men, ages 34 and 76, hospitalized with knife wounds.

Counterterrorism police are investigating whether the stabbings are linked to recent arson attacks on synagogues and other Jewish sites in the British capital.

Politicians condemned the stabbings. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that “attacks on our Jewish community are attacks on Britain," and called a meeting of the government's emergency committee to discuss the response.

Metropolitan Police chief Mark Rowley said that it was “another horrendous act of violence directed against our Jewish communities.”

But some British Jews expressed anger at authorities' failure to keep them safe. Rowley faced shouts of “shame on you” and “resign” from bystanders when he made a statement to media at the scene of the stabbings.

The security organization Shomrim said that a suspect “was seen running along Golders Green Road armed with a knife and attempting to stab Jewish members of the public." It said that the suspect was detained by Shomrim members and arrested by police, who used a stun gun on him.

Surveillance camera footage showed a man beside a bus stop donning a kippah, or traditional skullcap, before a passerby with a knife lunges at him.

Police said that the suspect also tried to stab police officers, but none was injured. Rowley said the suspect, whose name hasn't been released, had “a history of serious violence and mental health issues.”

Arson attacks in recent weeks targeted Jewish sites in London, including a charity's ambulances in Golders Green and a synagogue a few miles away.

“It happens in Israel, but happening on our own doorstep, of course it’s shocking,” Golders Green resident Moishe Grunfeld said. “I have kids, I have grandchildren.”

Britain’s Jewish community is long-established, but tiny as a percentage of the population, numbering about 300,000. The northwest London suburb of Golders Green is one of its epicenters, home to kosher restaurants, Jewish schools and several dozen synagogues, as well as large Asian and Middle Eastern communities.

“There must be absolutely no place for antisemitism in society,” London Mayor Sadiq Khan said.

No one was injured in the arson incidents. Several people, ranging in age from teens to people in their 40s, have been arrested and charged.

Counterterror officers are investigating whether the arson attacks were the work of Iranian proxies. The UK has accused Iran of using criminal proxies to conduct attacks on European soil targeting Iranian opposition media outlets and the Jewish community. Britain’s MI5 domestic intelligence service says that more than 20 “potentially lethal” Iran-backed plots were disrupted in the year ending in October.

Britain’s chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, said that Jews face a campaign of violence and intimidation and that words of condemnation are no longer sufficient.

“This must be a moment that demands meaningful action from every institution, every community, every leader and every decent person in our country," he said. “This is a hatred that we must face down together."

Israeli President Isaac Herzog said that the world must “wake up” to a rising wave of anti-Jewish hatred.

“In one of the great capital cities of the West, it has become dangerous to openly walk the streets as a Jew,” Herzog posted on X. “This is an unacceptable situation.”

The number of antisemitic incidents reported across the UK has soared since the attack by Hamas-led militants on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in Gaza, according to the Community Security Trust. The group recorded 3,700 incidents in 2025, up from 1,662 in 2022.

In October 2025, an attacker drove his car into people gathered outside a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur and stabbed one person to death. Another person died during the attack after being inadvertently shot by police.

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