Amsterdam Jewish school targeted in March explosion closed Thursday over threat
The Jewish school Cheider in Amsterdam will be closed on Thursday due to an unspecified threat, the Telegraaf reported. The Amsterdam school was also the target of an explosion in March.
The police confirmed that they received a report of a threat against the school. “We are currently investigating,” a police spokesperson told the newspaper. They could not comment on the nature of the threat.
Sources told the newspaper that the police were at the school with sniffer dogs. Mayor Femke Halsema was reportedly also scheduled to visit on Wednesday evening to speak with parents of the school, the newspaper’s sources said.
The school management did not respond to the newspaper’s questions.
The Jewish school had already remained closed on Friday, March 13, over threats received. The following day, an explosive was detonated at the school. The municipality amped up security around the school, and it could reopen that Monday.
Last week, it was reported that 32-year-old Iraqi man Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi had been arrested in Turkey for involvement in a series of attacks on Jewish targets in Europe, including the explosions at Cheider, a synagogue in Rotterdam, and an American bank in Amsterdam’s Zuidoost district. He is also suspected of other attacks in the Netherlands, Belgium, and England, including a stabbing in London in which two Jewish people were hurt.
The man is reportedly a high-ranking commander of Kata’ib Hizbullah, a group affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Iran. He has been extradited to the United States.
