Blast hits pro-Israel Christian center in Netherlands; Iranian-linked terror network suspected

Blast hits pro-Israel Christian center in Netherlands; Iranian-linked terror network suspected

Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz

A bomb exploded outside the Israel Centre of Christians for Israel in Nijkerk, Netherlands, late Friday night, the eve of Easter, in a calculated act of intimidation targeting one of Europe’s most visible Christian Zionist organizations. No one was injured, as the building was empty at the time, but the message was unmistakable: Jewish and pro-Israel targets across Europe are under coordinated attack.

Israel’s Ambassador to the Netherlands, Zvi Aviner Vapni, said plainly on X that the bombing was not a one-off event. A Dutch police spokeswoman confirmed to AFP that investigators had determined “a person dressed in black placed the explosive device” outside the organization’s gate, and an investigation is now underway. No arrests have been made.

Christians for Israel, a non-profit whose mission is to promote biblical understanding of God’s purposes for Israel and to mobilize Christian support for the Jewish people, called the attack part of “a worrying pattern” targeting Jewish and pro-Israeli sites across the Netherlands and neighboring Belgium. “The damage was limited,” the group said, “but the impact is significant.”

Striking a Christian Zionist center on the eve of Easter is a message aimed at Christians who stand with Israel, not only at Jews. Israel’s Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Ministry has identified a group calling itself Ashab al-Yamin, believed to be linked to Iranian terror networks, as responsible for a series of explosions and arson attacks targeting Jewish sites across Belgium, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam. The group claimed responsibility for the torching of four Hatzola ambulances belonging to the Jewish volunteer emergency medical service, outside a north London synagogue in March. UK media reported it also claimed an attack on a Jewish site in Greece.

The attacks are accelerating. An explosion struck a synagogue in Liège, Belgium, in March. Another bomb hit Amsterdam’s only Orthodox Jewish school, a building already surrounded by a pointed metal security wall due to prior threats, damaging a rain pipe and scorching an outer wall. In Rotterdam, Dutch police arrested four young men on suspicion of setting off an explosion outside a synagogue that caused a fire and structural damage.

Belgium has already deployed military troops to guard synagogues and Jewish schools.

What is unfolding across Europe is a coordinated, Iran-backed terror campaign targeting Jews and their allies on European soil in broad daylight, or in this case, in the dark of Easter eve. Europe’s Jewish communities are living under siege, and the organizations standing alongside them are now in the crosshairs as well. The question is whether European governments will finally call it what it is.