Belgium deploys soldiers to reinforce security at Jewish sites

BRUSSELS, March 23 (Reuters) – Soldiers were deployed on the streets of leading Belgian citieson Monday to bolster security for the Jewish community, after what officials said were antisemitic attacks in Belgium and the Netherlands.

The move follows an explosionthis month at a synagogue in Liege that authorities called an antisemitic act.

“From today we’re putting soldiers back on the streets in Brussels and Antwerp because safety is a basic right,” Belgian Defence Minister Theo Francken said in a post on X on Monday.

The deployment, in collaboration with federal police, will provide security at Jewish sites including synagogues and schools, Belgian authorities said in a press release last week.

Antwerp “is again a little safer….. the Jewish community too. We say NO to antisemitism!” Francken said on Monday.

The upgrade in security also follows an arson attack on a synagogue in Rotterdam and an explosion at a Jewish school in Amsterdam in neighbouring The Netherlands.

Dutch police have arrested five suspects, aged 17 to 19, over the synagogue attack in Rotterdam.

The U.S. embassy in Oslo was also targeted in a bombing earlier this month branded by Norwegian investigators as an act of terrorism. Noneof the attacks caused injuries.

A Belgian defence ministry spokesperson said on Monday that soldiers would be deployed in three different phases: First in Brussels and Antwerp, later in Liege.

Rights advocates have raised concerns about possibleattacks against Jewish communitiesaround theworld following the launch of the U.S. and Israeli war with Iran.Four ambulances belonging to a Jewish community organisation in north London were set ablaze on Monday.

(Reporting by Alexander Chituc, Editing by William Maclean)