UK police probe possible Iran link after Jewish charity ambulances set
on fire
[March 24, 2026]
By KRUTIKA PATHI and KWIYEON HA
LONDON (AP) — Four ambulances belonging to a Jewish charity were set on
fire early Monday in London in what British police are investigating as
an antisemitic hate crime. Detectives are working to determine whether a
claim of responsibility from a group with alleged links to Iran is
authentic.
Though it has not been classified as a terrorist incident, counterterror
officers have been put in charge of the investigation. No one was
injured in the nighttime attack, which shattered windows in nearby homes
and left the vehicles charred shells.
“We are pursuing all lines of inquiry, including an online claim of
responsibility by an Islamist group who have claimed other attacks
across Europe and have potential Iranian state links,” said Mark Rowley,
chief of London's Metropolitan Police.
Religious and political leaders condemned what Prime Minister Keir
Starmer called a “horrific" attack.
“Antisemitism has no place in our society and it’s really important that
we all stand together at a moment like this,” said Starmer, who met
Jewish community leaders at 10 Downing St. on Monday to discuss the
response to the attack.
Officers were called to Golders Green, a north London neighborhood with
a large Jewish population, after receiving reports of a fire, the
Metropolitan Police force said. Four ambulances belonging to Hatzola
Northwest, a volunteer organization that provides emergency medical
response, were damaged, according to the London Fire Brigade.
Oxygen cylinders on the vehicles exploded, breaking windows in an
adjacent apartment block. Nearby homes were evacuated as a precaution.
What appeared to be footage from a security camera showed three figures
in black wearing hoods carrying a canister toward one of the ambulance
before flames erupted around the vehicle. Police said they are looking
for three suspects but no arrests have been made yet.
Police try to authenticate claim of responsibility
A video posted on Telegram, allegedly by an Islamist group called
Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia, showed a map of the location where
the ambulances were kept and footage of them on fire. A group of the
same name, which translates as the Islamic Movement of the Companions of
the Right, previously claimed responsibility for synagogue attacks in
Belgium and the Netherlands.
Israel’s government has called it a recently founded group with
suspected links to pro-Iran networks.
“The rapid growth in recent years of Iranian state threats is grave,”
Rowley told the annual dinner of the Community Security Trust, which
works to provide safety for the Jewish community organization. But he
said “it is too early for me to attribute last night’s attack in Golders
Green to the Iranian state.”
The attack spread fear and alarm through Britain’s approximately
300,000-strong Jewish community, which feels increasingly vulnerable.
Mark Reisner, who lives in the neighborhood, heard loud explosions and
arrived at the scene “just as the third ambulance was blowing up,” he
told Sky News.
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A firefighter and a police officer look at a burnt Ambulance in
Golders Green, London, Monday, March 23, 2026 after an apparent
arson attack on four vehicles belonging to a Jewish ambulance
service, Hatzola Northwest, in London.(AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
“A very loud explosion, you sort of felt it go through your guts,”
he said, adding, “it's just left us all reeling with confusion and
shock.”
Previous attacks on UK Jewish community
The number of antisemitic incidents reported across the U.K. has
soared since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and Israel’s
ensuing war against Hamas in Gaza, according to the Community
Security Trust, which works to protect the Jewish community. 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 to celebrate the Jewish holiday of
Yom Kippur and stabbed one person to death. Another person died
during the attack after being inadvertently shot by police.
Last week two men in London were charged with carrying out “hostile”
surveillance last year of the U.K.’s Jewish community on behalf of
Iran.
Rowley, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, said the force would
increase security for Jewish schools, synagogues and community
centers ahead of Passover next month,
Some members of the community criticize Starmer's Labour Party
government for failing to prevent pro-Palestinian demonstrations
from tipping into anti-Jewish speech and acts.
Peter Zinkin, a Conservative politician who represents Golders Green
on the local council, said the community felt “distress and anger.”
“Burning ambulances in the middle of the night is a disgrace,” he
said. “And you have to ask yourself, why did it happen? And the
reason I’m afraid that it happened is that the government and the
media, particularly certain parts of the media, have validated
antisemitism on a countrywide scale.”
Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally, the head of the Anglican
Church, said “such acts of violence, hatred and intimidation have no
place in our society.”
Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis called it a “sickening assault.”
“At a time when Jewish communities around the world are facing a
growing pattern of these violent attacks, we will meet this moment
with shared resolve and stand together against hatred and
intimidation,” he wrote on X.
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Associated Press writers Danica Kirka and Jill Lawless in London
contributed to this report.
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