In the wake of the Israel-Hamas war, Europe braces for a fresh wave of terror attacks after a firebomb assault on a Berlin synagogue and killings in Belgium and France by suspected Islamist extremists.
“We have to address multiple impacts from the continuing crisis in the Middle East, and part of this is to assess all possible consequences for us in the European Union,” European Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas told reporters in Luxembourg, where a meeting of European Union interior ministers is taking place on Thursday.
“This entails the protection of our Jewish communities, but also the protection against a generalized climate of Islamophobia that has no place in our society,” he said per the Associated Press.
Europe is seeing a rise in terror attacks
Europe is seeing a rise in “Islamist terrorism,” and all states are threatened, French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Tuesday.
Macron spoke a day after a 45-year-old attacker, who identified himself as a member of the Islamic State and claimed responsibility in a video posted online, killed two Swedes fans in Brussels.
“We saw it again yesterday in Brussels,” Macron said. “All European states are vulnerable, and there is indeed a resurgence of Islamist terrorism.”
In an interview with ABC News, the European Union’s top law enforcement official said she is worried about what might happen in the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel and Israel’s military response.
“I am concerned,” Executive Director of Europol Catherine De Bolle said.
“With our latest report on terrorism and the status in the European Union, we see that a lot of youngsters, in fact, are influenced and recruited through [the] internet,” she said. “We see a lot of lone actors who believe that they have to go and commit a terrorist attack because they want to belong to a bigger family.”
“And now with the facts in Palestine, we really have to monitor on a daily basis, what is going on, and we have to be [aware]…to take…precautionary measures,” said De Bolle.
“I think we [are] going to have a wave of terrorism in the world,” Claude Moniquet, a Belgian terrorism specialist told Euronews. “It could be in Europe—it is in Europe.”
“Today, it is in France and Belgium,” Moniquet said. “It could be tomorrow in the United States, maybe anywhere, but there’s going to be a terrorist shock that’s going to follow what’s happening in the Middle East.”
Conflict between Israel and Hamas could encourage more attacks
Experts have warned that the conflict between Israel and Hamas could encourage more attacks, something Moniquet also believes.
“What is happening in Israel is a new motivation,” the terrorism expert said in speaking to Euronews. “It is a new incentive which allows jihad to resurface and increase, but fundamentally, we must understand that radical Islam is the basic problem behind it and that terrorism is just a tool that comes out when it has a good pretext to come out.”
Moniquet did add, however, that there is little risk of having large-scale coordinated terrorist attacks in Europe, given that there is no capacity left for that. Instead, attacks by individuals are more likely.
“Today, what we have is more individual attacks or attacks [by] very small family or friend-related units,” he said.
Related: Greece Foils Terrorist Attacks on Jewish Targets in Athens
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