U.K. antisemitic incidents surge 21% amid Iran war, London terror attacks

Antisemitic incidents in the United Kingdom jumped 21% in the first half of 2026 compared with a year earlier, marking the second-highest six-month total ever recorded, according to a report published by the Community Security Trust, a charity that monitors anti-Jewish hate crimes. 

The watchdog tallied 1,926 antisemitic incidents between January and June, up from 1,598 during the same period last year. The monthly average worked out to 321 incidents, nearly double the rate recorded before Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. 

CST logged 135 assaults during the six-month span, an 82% jump from a year earlier and the highest such total the organization has ever recorded. Assaults remain a small share of the overall total — about 7% of all incidents — but the increase in physical violence outpaced the broader rise in reports. Incidents affecting schools, including Jewish schools, Jewish pupils away from school and non-Jewish schools, climbed 59% to 178, while cases affecting synagogues and people traveling to or from them rose 31%, to 117.

The organization said the sustained rate of anti-Jewish hate, and the rise in monthly totals from March onward, coincided with the war between Israel, the United States and Iran that began Feb. 28. Antisemitic reports rose from 52 to 89 in the week after the opening airstrikes, a 71% increase, though CST characterized this as an observed pattern rather than direct proof of cause. Among the most serious cases was the April 29 stabbing of two visibly Jewish men in the Golders Green neighborhood of north London. Essa Suleiman, 45, was charged with three counts of attempted murder in connection with the attack, which police formally declared a terrorist incident. CST recorded 71 antisemitic incidents across the day of the stabbing and the two days that followed — 21 on the day of the attack, 24 the next day and 26 the day after that — of which 16 explicitly referenced the stabbing.

The report also detailed a string of arson attacks on London synagogues and Jewish-linked properties, beginning March 23 when four ambulances belonging to the Jewish charity Hatzola were set ablaze. CST tied at least four of the arsons to a group called Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia, also known as the Islamic Movement of Companions of the Right, which had claimed responsibility for seven attacks in all. Those targets included U.K. locations linked to Jewish and Israeli communities as well as a Persian-language media outlet. 

On July 13, the British government took two separate actions against the group: Parliament moved to formally proscribe it, along with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, under the National Security Act 2023, while the Foreign Office separately imposed financial sanctions freezing any assets the group holds in the U.K. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said in a statement that members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force were believed to have directed the group’s attacks across Europe. 

CST Chief Executive Mark Gardner said the wave of attacks should concern anyone who cares about Britain, whether directed by Iran or driven by domestic extremism of any ideological stripe.

“These attacks are directed against British Jews, but they are also attacks on Britain,” Mr. Gardner said, adding that they threaten British society more broadly.

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Policing Minister Sarah Jones called the figures alarming and said, “we must never stop fighting to rid society of this evil.” She pointed to a three-year, more than 250 million pounds policing and counterterrorism package announced in July — including funding for 500 additional officers and 86 million pounds for London’s Metropolitan Police — as well as a separate 32.4 million pounds allocated for 2026-27 specifically to strengthen physical security at synagogues, Jewish schools and community centers.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp called the situation “a national emergency,” saying thousands of Jewish families are living in fear in their own country.

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