Israeli consulate targeted in 'terrorist attack' in Germany

German police said they killed a man on Thursday who was about to ;to commit a “terrorist attack” against the Israeli Consulate General in Munich on the day of the commemoration of the deadly hostage-taking targeting athletes ;tes of this country during the 1972 Olympic Games.

“We currently assume that this was a terrorist attack linked to the Consulate General of the State of Israel” in Munich, the local police wrote in a statement, while several media outlets have reported the suspect's sympathies for Islamist theories.

“Anti-Semitism and Islamism have no place in our country,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz responded on his X account, even though the Bavarian police have not yet taken an official position on the suspect's ideology.

The latter, an 18-year-old Austrian from Austria, was killed by the police after firing several shots around 9 a.m. in the direction of police officers guarding sensitive buildings in Munich, including the Israeli Consul General, local authorities said.

He was armed with an old-model carbine, equipped with a bayonet.

According to the German weekly Der Spiegel and the Austrian newspaper Standard, the young man was known as an Islamist by his country's security services. The police had investigated the suspect, who lived near Salzburg, Austria, last year because he was spreading propaganda for the Islamic State (IS). The investigation was later dropped, they write.

On X, Israeli President Isaac Herzog expressed “his horror” after this “terrorist attack”.

— “Rise of anti-Semitism” —

“This event shows how dangerous the rise of anti-Semitism is. It is important that the general public vigorously opposes it,” stressed the Israeli consul in Munich, Talya Lador-Fresher, in a statement to AFP sent by email.

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Since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, which triggered the war in Gaza, German authorities have been particularly on guard against the Islamist threat and the resurgence of anti-Semitism, like many countries around the world.

Police officers secure the area after a shooting in Munich, southern Germany, on September 5, 2024 © AFP – LUKAS BARTH-TUTTAS

According to German authorities, Thursday's shootings are “probably” linked to the anniversary of the bloody hostage-taking at the Olympic Games on September 5, 1972.

— “Very serious act” —

During this attack committed by a Palestinian commando, eleven Israeli athletes were killed, as well as a policeman and five hostage-takers.

A ceremony commemorating the victims of the 1972 hostage-taking was canceled Thursday in Fürstenfeldbruck, where the Israeli athletes were shot dead.

Speaking of a “very serious act”, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser assured that “the protection of Jewish and Israeli establishments was an absolute priority”.

Germany has been on the alert for months because it considers itself “in the crosshairs of jihadist organisations”.

Since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, the increase in anti-Jewish crimes has been particularly worrying in Germany, a country which, because of the Holocaust, has elevated support for Israel to the rank of a reason of state.

A record number of 5,164 anti-Semitic crimes were recorded in 2023, compared to 2,641 in 2022, according to the domestic intelligence.

One of the most significant anti-Semitic attacks in post-war Germany occurred in 2019: two people were killed after a neo-Nazi attempted to storm a synagogue in Halle, in the former GDR, on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.

The Central Council of Jews in Germany estimates that there are around 100,000 practicing Jews in the country and around 100 synagogues.

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