Report: Polish police arrest suspect, 16, in Warsaw synagogue attack

DPA
·1 min read
A view of a Polish police vehicle parked on a street. Polish police have detained a 16-year-old boy suspected of having thrown a Molotov cocktail at the historic Nożyk Synagogue, a police spokesman told the Rzeczpospolita newspaper on Thursday. Doris Heimann/dpa
A view of a Polish police vehicle parked on a street. Polish police have detained a 16-year-old boy suspected of having thrown a Molotov cocktail at the historic Nożyk Synagogue, a police spokesman told the Rzeczpospolita newspaper on Thursday. Doris Heimann/dpa

Polish police have detained a 16-year-old boy suspected of having thrown a Molotov cocktail at the historic Nożyk Synagogue, a police spokesman told the Rzeczpospolita newspaper on Thursday.

The motive behind the Wednesday attack on the only Warsaw synagogue to have survived the Nazi onslaught during World War II, remained unclear. The suspect refused to make a statement.

On Wednesday, the Israeli ambassador to Poland, Yacov Livne, published a photo on X, formerly Twitter, showing burn marks on the Nożyk Synagogue in the centre of the city.

"Outrageous anti-Semitic attacks such as this can not be tolerated today," Livne wrote. "The perpetrators must be found and punished."

President Andrzej Duda also condemned the offence. He wrote on X: "There is no place for anti-Semitism in Poland! There is no place for in Poland for hatred!"

The 1902 synagogue, in the city centre on the left bank of the Vistula, is Warsaw's main synagogue today.