The Swedish intelligence services (Säpo) announced on Friday that they had opened an investigation for “terrorist crime” after the foiled attempted attack on the Israeli embassy in Sweden on Wednesday. “The preliminary investigation opened by the police on January 31 (…) was taken over by the Swedish intelligence services”, they indicated in a press release, specifying that “the criminal qualification was (had) been changed to terrorist crime.
“We will not be intimidated by terror”
Around 1 p.m. on Wednesday, Stockholm police were alerted by the embassy, which had found “an object that it considered dangerous” in its premises, the police said. An area around the object had been cordoned off and the device, which had probably been “activated”, according to police, was destroyed by national deminers. The Israeli mission in Sweden immediately reacted, denouncing an “attempted attack”. “We will not be intimidated by terror,” wrote Israeli Ambassador to Sweden Ziv Nevo Kulman on X. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, for his part, described the situation as “very serious.”
According to the Swedish tabloids Expressen and Aftonbladet, citing unidentified sources, the device in question was a hand grenade. This would have been launched over the fence surrounding the mission, landing on the ground near the building, Aftonbladet detailed. At the end of October, the Swedish government pledged 10 million crowns ($1 million) to strengthen the security of Jewish institutions and congregations, following the rise in anti-Semitism in the wake of the war between Israel and Hamas.
Over the two months following the start of the war between Israel and the Palestinian movement Hamas, 120 complaints for inciting anti-Semitic hatred were recorded in Sweden, according to police figures obtained by AFP. In early December, Ulf Kristersson and members of his government took part in a march against anti-Semitism in central Stockholm. The leader said he was “very concerned that anti-Semitism is spreading in Sweden and other European countries.”
The war broke out on October 7 when Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza carried out an unprecedented attack on Israeli soil, which left around 1,163 dead, mostly civilians, according to a new AFP count based on data Israeli officials. In response, Israel vowed to “annihilate” Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007, and launched a military offensive which left more than 27,000 dead, the vast majority civilians, according to the movement’s Health Ministry.