London police searching for man wearing shirt celebrating historic Islamic massacre of Jews

London police are searching for a man photographed wearing a shirt displaying an antisemitic chant associated with a 7th-century Islamic battle in which Jewish tribes in the Arabian Peninsula were defeated and much of the Jewish population was massacred.

The incident was reported by the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) after a Jewish father and his children spotted the man at a Sainsbury’s supermarket in north London.

The case comes amid heightened concerns over increasingly open antisemitic incidents in Britain since the Hamas Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in Israel.

The text on the shirt stated “Khaybar Khaybar yaa Yahud,” the opening line in an Arabic chant that continues with “the army of Muhammad is returning.”

Yahud is the Arabic word for Jew, while Khaybar refers to the oasis where the Islamic army led by Muhammad fought against local Jewish tribes and eventually massacred much of the Jewish population. Muslim extremists have in modern times frequently used the antisemitic chant to incite threats of violence against Jews worldwide.

The London Metropolitan Police reported that officers received a report of the incident around 3:35 p.m. last Friday. The Jewish man filed a report and obtained a translation of the antisemitic chant.

According to the CAA, London police were initially unaware of the meaning of the Khaybar chant or its historical context. After receiving relevant expertise, police recorded the incident as a suspected racially aggravated public-order offense.

“Officers are in contact with the victim and inquiries to identify the individual involved are ongoing. No arrests have been made at this stage,” the police said in an official statement.

The CAA called on authorities to take strong action against the suspect.

“This abhorrent intimidation must be met with the full force of the law,” the organization stated. CAA warned that antisemitic incitement in the UK had become increasingly open, “to the point that they are now being displayed casually in everyday public spaces.”

The organization warned that similar anti-Jewish incidents in the UK would likely continue until perpetrators faced serious consequences for their actions.

The Campaign Against Antisemitism urged the public to provide any information that could help authorities identify and locate the suspect.

Anti-Jewish incidents in the UK have soared following the Hamas Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.

Former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen warned in a recent interview that the UK was no longer safe for Jews due to growing levels of increasingly violent antisemitism.

"The UK government should understand that we read what they do. And you do have a huge local problem in the UK today. It is not safe to walk on London streets or in Manchester if you’re Jewish," Cohen assessed in an interview with the British podcast “The General and the Journalist.”

The British government announced last month that it would invest $335 million in boosting security for Jewish institutions due to elevated threats against the British Jewish community.

British Minister of State for Policing and Crime Sarah Jones pledged to protect the British Jewish community.

“After a series of appalling attacks against Jewish communities, the difficult decision was made to raise the threat level to severe. My thoughts remain with the victims of these vile attacks. Today we are going further and providing record funding to help keep Jewish people safe, supporting visible policing and protection around synagogues, schools and community centers. We will do everything in our power to rid society of the evil of antisemitism,” Jones stated.