The police in Copenhagen arrested three men in connection with two explosions that occurred near the Israeli Embassy just north of Copenhagen early Wednesday.
The assailants probably used two hand grenades, according to Jens Jespersen, the Copenhagen Police Department’s chief police inspector.
The police arrested two of the men at Copenhagen’s Central Station, and a third man in another part of the city, the police said in a statement on Wednesday. The three men arrested were Swedish and between 15 and 20 years old, Mr. Jespersen said during a news conference on Wednesday.
Mr. Jespersen added that the police were not looking for any more suspects.
The explosions, which took place around 3:20 a.m., according to the Copenhagen Police Department, were reported in Hellerup, a seaside suburb just north of Copenhagen that is home to several embassies, the police said. Security personnel at the embassy heard the explosions and reported them, the police said.
No one was injured, the police said.
On Wednesday morning, a police spokesman said that officers were still present in the area around the embassy and that they had blocked off several roads as they conducted their investigation with the assistance of the Danish intelligence service.
The police also found a bag on a train at Copenhagen’s Central Station that belonged to the men they arrested, Mr. Jespersen said.
The Israeli Embassy in Denmark said on its Facebook page that it was “shocked by the explosions.” Copenhagen’s only Jewish school was closed on Wednesday because of its proximity to the Israeli Embassy and the explosions, said Michael Rachlin, the spokesman for the Jewish community in Denmark. The school will be closed for the Jewish New Year on Thursday and Friday as well, as is customary.
The explosions came a day after the police in Stockholm said that the Israeli Embassy there appeared to have been hit by gunfire. The police in Sweden were investigating but said no one had been injured and no arrests had been made.
Other Israeli diplomatic missions in Europe have seen disturbances recently. Last month, police officers in Munich shot and killed a gunman who had opened fire at security guards near the Israeli Consulate there. And in June, an assailant wielding a crossbow attacked a police officer guarding the Israeli Embassy in Belgrade, Serbia’s capital.
The attacks on the Scandinavian embassies came against a backdrop of further escalating tensions in the Middle East after a year of war set off by the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
Iran fired 180 ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday evening in retaliation for the killing of prominent leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, two Iran-backed militias. And the Israeli military began a ground invasion against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon on Monday.
Maya Tekeli contributed reporting from Copenhagen.
Source link : https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/02/world/europe/copenhagen-explosion-israeli-embassy.html
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Publish date : 2024-10-02 10:29:44
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