Antwerp police arrested five people on Sunday after what Flemish newspaper De Morgen called a suspected “Jew hunt”.
All five were released the same night.
The suspects were put under administrative arrest, a special form of detention in Belgium designed to be preventative rather than part of a criminal investigation, and can last a maximum of 12 hours.
According to reports, those who were arrested had planned to attack Jews as a sign of solidarity with attacks on Israeli football fans in Amsterdam last week.
Amid reports of the arrests, a video began circulating on social media reportedly showing a strictly Orthodox teenager being attacked by rioters in a Jewish neighbourhood of Antwerp.
In the video, the 14 year old from Antwerp’s Charedi community is seen being attacked by hooded thugs who punch him in the face as they shout “free Palestine”.
The attackers chased the boy out of a parking garage, knocking off his black hat and repeatedly punching him.
According to Israeli newspaper Ynet, the alleged attack happened two weeks ago, but the clip was shared on TikTok on Monday with the tag “#FreePalestina” in an apparent attempt to “stand with Amsterdam” following the violence scenes in the Dutch capital last week.
The boy’s family said such attacks in the city happen “occasionally” and only decided to file a police report when the videos were published online.
Meanwhile, German authorities in Berlin have put a young Jewish football team under police protection after they were pursued by an armed mob after a football match last week.
Players from Makkabi Berlin’s youth squad, aged 13 to 16, said they were “hunted down” after a game against local rivals in Neukölln last week. The Jewish side was allegedly chased off the pitch.
The Makkabi Germany president, Alon Meyer, claimed the team were targeted with “threats, including chasing people with knives”.
Posting on social media, Schlomo Afanasev, a rabbi in the German military and founding member of the Jewish community Kahal Adass Yisroel, who is a father of one of the Makkabi players, detailed the events.
“My 13-year-old son played a soccer game with his friends from Makkabi Berlin in Neukölln yesterday... Unfortunately, the atmosphere during the game became increasingly aggressive and hostile,” Afanasev wrote.
“Our children were insulted and even spat on several times — and this without the referee intervening or even paying any attention.
“After the game, the situation escalated further: children and adults were followed and loudly insulted,” the rabbi explained.
He shared a screenshot of a message sent by one of the players that described how the team were chased by “Arab youths” who shouted “F***ing Jews” and “Free Palestine” at the team and threatened them with knives and sticks.
Afanasev said his son was “deeply shaken” after he was spat at and harassed by a group of adults and children, who followed the young team off the pitch.
The rival club, Schwarz-Weiss Neukölln, promised to expel any perpetrators, telling local media “Incidents like this don’t belong on soccer pitches — and certainly not on ours”.
The German police unit responsible for investigating politically motivated crime, the Staatsschutz, has opened an investigation into the attack.
The Makkabi Berlin adult side has had police protection since the Hamas attack on Israel last year and offices attended all of the club’s home games on the weekend in response to last week’s alleged attack.
