Toulouse Jewish center firebombed after anti-Israel protest in area

French police arrest man for throwing three firebombs in same city that experienced an anti-Semitic shooting two years ago.

By JTA
French police at scene of Toulouse standoff 370 (R) (photo credit: REUTERS/Jean-Paul Pelissier)
French police at scene of Toulouse standoff 370 (R)
(photo credit: REUTERS/Jean-Paul Pelissier)
Police in Toulouse arrested a man who hurled three firebombs at a Jewish community center and the officers guarding it.
The incident happened Saturday, one hour after the conclusion of a demonstration against Israel’s actions against Hamas in Gaza, the AFP news agency reported.
The man, who was not named, threw two firebombs over the center’s fence and a third at the officers but none of the bombs successfully ignited. He also hurled stones at the Espace du Judaisme center, which contains a synagogue, a library and a lecture room, among other facilities.
“Our lives have become absurd,” Nicole Yardeni, the head of the local branch of the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities said. “We endure daily insults and get spat on, a general feeling of anxiety because a part of the population has a poisoned mind that makes it their mission to hurt Jews, regardless of Gaza.”
On Sunday, approximately 2,000 people, many of them Jews, held a rally in Marseille to express their solidarity with Israel.
Also on Saturday, the Correctional Tribunal of Paris released 11 of the 16 suspects that police arrested July 23 on suspicion that they were involved in carrying out an attack on a kosher restaurant in Paris’s 4th Arrondissement, which is also known as the Marais and is Paris’s historic Jewish quarter.
Eight of the suspects were minors, the website 20minutes.fr reported. Seven of them were released for lack of evidence, along with four adults. The court extended the remand of four young men and one minor, who was sent to juvenile court.
The suspects still in custody are believed to have been part of a group of 50 people who splintered off a pro-Palestinian demonstration and headed for the 4th Arrondissement.
A worker of the restaurant managed to shutter the restaurant’s anti-burglary bars, preventing the crowd from entering and locking dozens of customers inside, according to 20minutes.fr. The crowd proceeded to hurl various objects at the windows while shouting “bunch of dirty Jews, we will kill you” and “death to the Jews.”
One of the people released was a 32-year-old man whose criminal record included 14 incidents, and whose photo was identified by two victims of the attack.