Police in the city of Derry are investigating an attack on a Jewish-owned business as a hate crime, the Belfast Telegraph reported on Monday.
Perpetrators of the attack painted graffiti on the owner's business. This incident comes on the heels of other acts of antisemitism in Northern Ireland, following a similar global rise of antisemitism amid violence between Israel and Gaza-based terrorist organizations.
In Belfast, a synagogue was threatened with being picketed if the local Jewish community refused to condemn Israeli operations in Gaza, which ended up disrupting Shavuot services. The synagogue ultimately held services with only 10 congregants, the minimum amount needed to conduct services, after other congregants expressed concerns about attending.
The Community Security Trust (CST), a UK-based charity focused on aiding victims of antisemitism and strengthening relations between British Jews and British society, said that antisemitism in Northern Ireland is also being expressed via social media, in addition to verbal threats.
Sensitives toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has long been particularly acute in Northern Ireland, due to perceived similarities to the conflict between Irish Catholic republicans and Ulster Protestant unionists, with the former traditionally supporting the Palestinian cause and the latter group Israel.