Attack foiled at Israel’s Sweden embassy: ambassador

STOCKHOLM (AFP): Israel’s embassy in Stockholm was the target of an attempted attack, the ambassador said Wednesday, after a bomb squad destroyed what Swedish police called “a dangerous object.”

Police said the “live” device had been found by staff inside the premises of the Israeli embassy in the Swedish capital, without specifying what the object was.

“We were alerted at 1:08 p.m. (1208 GMT) by the embassy that they had found an object they believed to be dangerous,” Daniel Wikdahl with the Stockholm police told AFP.

An area around the object was closed off and Wikdahl added that the national bomb squad had been called to scene and had decided to destroy the object.

“The object has been destroyed by the national bomb squad, and our assessment is that it was live,” the police officer said.

Police have opened an investigation, but Wikdahl declined to specify what the object was, citing the ongoing enquiries.

“Today we were subject to an attempted attack against the Embassy of Israel in Stockholm and its employees,” Israeli ambassador to Sweden Ziv Nevo Kulman said in a post to X.

“We will not be intimidated by terror,” Kulman added.

Sweden’s government in late October pledged 10 million kronor ($1 million) in to increase security at Jewish institutions and congregations, as a result of increased anti-semitism in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war.

In early December, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson took part in a march against anti-semitism in Stockholm.

Swedish police said at the time, they had received 120 reports of ant-semitic crimes since the outbreak of the war.

Following the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, which resulted in the deaths of around 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures, its military launched a withering air, land and sea offensive.

It has killed at least 26,900 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the territory’s health ministry.