London police arrest two suspects following antisemitic arson attack on Jewish community ambulances

London police announced on Wednesday that they arrested two suspects linked to the recent arson attack on four Jewish community ambulances in Golders Green, a northern London neighborhood with a large Jewish population. The two male suspects, aged 45 and 47, were arrested “on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life.”

The ambulances, which belong to Jewish Hatzalah Northwest emergency service, were set on fire outside a synagogue during the night between Sunday and Monday. 

“We have been working around the clock since this appalling attack took place, and this has led to these arrests being made this morning,” Commander Helen Flanagan, the head of counterterrorism policing, stated on Wednesday. 

“This appears to be an important breakthrough in the investigation, but we’re also mindful that CCTV footage of the incident suggests there were at least three people involved,” she added. The third suspect is reportedly still at large. 

🚨BREAKING: An IRGC terrorist group in the UK has claimed responsibility for the arson attack in Golders Green 🇬🇧

The group, known as Ashab Al-Yamin, has claimed the attack on the 4 Jewish ambulances this morning.

We have imported millions of people who hate each other, now we… pic.twitter.com/CcFsgqpCZs

— BRITAIN IS BROKEN 🇬🇧 (@BROKENBRITAIN0) March 23, 2026

The recently established Shi’ite Iran-linked terrorist group Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiyyah (HAYI), known in English as the Islamic Movement of the People of the Right, claimed responsibility for the antisemitic attack in a Telegram post. British police are reportedly examining whether the Tehran-backed terrorist group was behind the attack. 

The Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism recently released details of the Islamist extremist group after it also claimed responsibility for multiple attacks on Jewish sites across Europe. For instance, two suspects were arrested in Belgium on Tuesday after the HAYI terrorist group set fire to a car in the Jewish quarter in the city of Antwerp. 

London Chief of Police Mark Rowley confirmed on Monday that his forces were “pursuing all lines of enquiry, including an online claim of responsibility by an Islamist group who have claimed other attacks across Europe and have potential Iranian state links.”

SITE monitoring service has assessed that HAYI is a Tehran-backed terrorist proxy. The United Kingdom is home to a Jewish community numbering some 300,000 people. At least half of the British Jewish population lives in London, and Golders Green is one of the most prominent Jewish neighborhoods. 

The number of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel incidents has soared in the UK since the Hamas Oct. 7, 2023, massacre. Like in much of the Western world, radical Islamists and far-leftist activists have played a central role in the dramatic rise in antisemitism in Britain. 

Jihad al-Shamie, an Islamist terrorist of Syrian origin, murdered two Jews and wounded four more people in an antisemitic attack against a synagogue in Manchester in October 2025 during Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.

While the lethal antisemitic attack was widely condemned, many Jewish officials were not surprised that it happened, given the dramatic rise in antisemitism in the UK. 

“This is the day we hoped we would never see, but which deep down, we knew would come,” British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis stated in a post on 𝕏 at the time. 

“For so long we have witnessed an unrelenting wave of Jew hatred on our streets, on campuses, on social media and elsewhere – this is the tragic result. This is not only an assault on the Jewish community, but an attack on the very foundations of humanity and the values of compassion, dignity, and respect which we all share,” Mirvis warned. 

Many British Jews have blamed the government for failing to act against the growing antisemitism in the country.