Israeli football fan describes attack in Amsterdam

An Israeli football fan has described being attacked by several men in overnight violence that Amsterdam police say involved youths on scooters carrying out “hit-and-run” attacks that were hard to prevent.

Adi Reuben, a 24-year-old Maccabi Tel Aviv fan who was visiting Amsterdam for the club’s Europa League match with Ajax, told the BBC he was kicked on the floor by a group of young men who confronted him when he was walking to his hotel.

He said more than 10 men came up to him and his friends and asked them where they were from.

“They shouted ‘Jewish, Jewish, IDF, IDF’,” Mr Reuben said, referring to the Israeli military.

“They started to mess with me and I realised I had to run, but it was dark and I didn’t know where to go. I fell to the floor and 10 people were kicking me. They were shouting ‘Palestine’.

“They were kicking me on the floor for about a minute, then they walked off, they weren’t afraid of anything.

“I realised I had full blood on my face and my nose was broken and it is very painful.”

Mr Reuben said he could not see properly for about 30 minutes after the attack, but decided against going to hospital in Amsterdam because he had heard that taxi drivers were involved in the violence.

Instead he said he was flying to Israel on Friday afternoon on a flight organised by the Israeli government, and would get medical treatment there.

“This was a specific attack that was organised beforehand,” he added.

Some Israeli football fans said they were asked to show their passports when they were attacked.

Gal Binyanmin Tshuva, 29, told the BBC he was attacked on Wednesday outside a casino in the city after watching a different football game.

“We faced around 20 people who ran towards us. They asked me where I was from, and I said I was from Greece. They said they didn’t believe me and they asked to see my passport.

“I said I didn’t have my passport and then they beat me and pushed me to the ground and started kicking my face.

“I don’t remember anything after that, and I woke up in an ambulance with blood all over my face, and realised they had broken two of my teeth.”

Pnina, another Maccabi Tel Aviv supporter, also told Dutch media organisation NOS that the violence against Israelis appeared pre-planned.

“It seems like it was organised. There was a lot of people. They jumped on us… We hid in the hotels until it was safe to go outside,” she said.

Esther Voet, editor-in-chief of a Dutch Jewish weekly newspaper, lives in the city centre and says she offered her home to shelter several Israeli fans, after she saw footage of the violence.

“I told them this is a Jewish home and you are safe here,” she told Israeli public broadcaster Kann. “People were really scared. I never thought I would go through this in Amsterdam.”

Dutch police said Israeli fans had suffered “serious abuses” during “hit-and-run” attacks many of which were carried out by young men on scooters.

Amsterdam police chief Peter Holla said it had proved difficult to prevent such attacks even though police had been present in the city centre in numbers. The force eventually decided to bring Maccabi supporters together and protect them before transporting them out of the area in buses, he said.

Five people were injured but had left hospital and between 20 and 30 more had been lightly hurt, he said.

The attacks overnight into Friday followed some tensions between Maccabi fans and people in Amsterdam over previous days, officials said.

On Wednesday Maccabi fans attacked a taxi and burned a Palestinian flag, police chief Holla said. Taxi drivers then headed towards a location where about 400 Maccabi fans had gathered but police were able to take them out of the area. There were further clashes in Dam Square overnight into Thursday but police were mostly able to keep the groups separate.

On Thursday evening before the match police accompanied pro-Palestinian demonstrators and mostly managed to keep them separate from football fans – but were then unable to prevent attacks later in the evening.

“We are looking back on 36 hours that really shocked me. Supporters from Israel have been attacked and some abused in a terrible way,” Holla said.

“I’m particularly shocked by fact that we’ve had one of largest police actions and we were not able to control or prevent this violence.”

Amsterdam’s mayor Femke Halsema said the “war in the Middle East has threatened the peace in our city” and there had been a “terrible outburst of antisemitism”.

She said Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were not considered to pose a threat of violence and there was no animosity between them and fans of Dutch club Ajax.

“I do understand that this reminds us of pogroms and that this happened in Amsterdam is reprehensible. Not only people got injured last night but the history of our city has been deeply damaged, the Jewish culture has been threatened,” she said.

Some Maccabi Tel Aviv fans have previously been involved in racist incidents in Israel, including cursing at the team’s Palestinian and Arab players and reportedly applying pressure on the team to oust them.

Fans of the team have also previously attacked protesters demonstrating against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Asked about video footage appearing to show Maccabi fans in Amsterdam chanting offensive slogans, Mayor Halsema said: “What happened last night has nothing to do with protest. There is no excuse for what happened.”

Additional reporting Shaina Oppenheimer in Jerusalem