Former Chelsea winger Hakim Ziyech has mocked the Israeli football supporters who were attacked in Amsterdam on Thursday night.
Amsterdam’s mayor, Femke Halsema, claims the violence towards Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, who were in the Dutch capital for their team’s Europa League match against Ajax, was orchestrated by ‘antisemitic hit-and-run squads’.
‘Men on scooters crisscrossed the city looking for Israeli football fans. It was a hit and run. I can easily understand that this brings back memories of pogroms,’ Halsema said.
At least five people have been treated in hospital due to the attacks, while 62 people were arrested.
Clips of the violence which were shared on social media show one man who was motionless on the ground being kicked by two different people.
In another video, one man cowering on the floor is heard pleading, ‘I’ll give you money, please go’, while the person standing over him shouts, ‘free Palestine, you want to kill kids?’.
Ziyech, who made 107 appearances during his time at Chelsea and currently plays for Turkish side Galatasaray and Morocco’s national team, shared a video of people running away from attackers in Amsterdam on his Instagram account and wrote: ‘If it’s not women and children they run away.’
Maccabi Tel Aviv striker Eran Zahavi, who also plays for Israel’s national team, hit out at Ziyech’s post on Instagram.
Zahavi wrote: ‘Stupid terror supporter. I hope you see it and punish him! @uefa_official’
Before the attacks, a pro-Palestine demonstration had been banned from taking place near the Johan Cruyff Arena due to safety concerns.
One person who attended the demonstration before riot police intervened told Dutch broadcaster AT5 that the video which showed Maccabi Tel Aviv fans removing the Palestinian flag in Amsterdam’s city centre the previous evening had ’caused a lot of anger’.
Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters were also filmed chanting, ‘ole, ole, let the IDF win’, referring to the Israel Defence Forces, followed by an expletive word directed towards ‘Arabs’, as they made their way to the stadium.
Ajax fans were also unhappy moments before kick-off inside Johan Cruyff Arena as Maccabi Tel Aviv’s supporters disrupted a minute’s silence which was held in memory of the victims of the deadly floods in Valencia.
In a phone call with Israel’s President Isaac Herzog, Netherlands King Willem-Alexander expressed ‘deep horror and shock’.
‘We failed the Jewish community of the Netherlands during World War Two, and last night we failed again,’ he said.
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Emergency measures were in place in Amsterdam on Friday, with people banned from protesting and wearing face coverings.
Israel, meanwhile, sent two commercial planes as ‘rescue flights’ to Amsterdam on Friday to help bring supporters back to the country.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: ‘Tomorrow, 86 years ago, was Kristallnacht – an attack on Jews just for being Jews, on European soil.
‘It’s back now – yesterday we saw it on the streets of Amsterdam. This is what happened.’
Kristallnacht, or Night of Broken Glass, refers to the violet Nazi attacks and murders carried out on Jewish people from November 9 to 10, 1938.
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