An explosion damaged a Jewish school in Amsterdam’s Buitenveldert neighborhood on Saturday morning, Dutch police confirmed, in what authorities described as a deliberate attack that marked the third incident targeting Jewish buildings in the Netherlands and Belgium within a single week.

No students were present at the school at the time of the explosion, as the attack occurred early Saturday before classes were scheduled to begin. Three staff members who had arrived early to prepare for the day sustained minor injuries. The blast caused significant structural damage to the school’s entrance and ground floor, and police said the building was not immediately safe to occupy.

Dutch authorities launched an urgent investigation and announced they were treating the incident as a hate crime and potential act of terrorism. The National Police Commissioner said additional security measures would be deployed immediately at Jewish schools, synagogues, community centers, and other sites across the country.

The Amsterdam attack followed an incident in Antwerp, Belgium on Monday in which two windows of a Jewish cultural center were shattered by an explosive device, and a separate arson attempt against a synagogue in Rotterdam on Wednesday that was extinguished before significant damage occurred. Security officials in both countries said they were examining whether the attacks were linked.

Community leaders from Amsterdam’s Jewish community, one of the oldest in Europe with roots dating to the 17th century, expressed alarm and grief at the escalating pattern of attacks. The Central Jewish Organization of the Netherlands called on the government to deploy permanent security personnel at all major Jewish institutions and to increase sentences for antisemitic crimes.

Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof condemned the attack in the strongest terms, calling it an assault on the values of Dutch society and promising that those responsible would be brought to justice. He said he had spoken with leaders of the Jewish community and that the government stood in full solidarity with them.

European officials, including the EU’s Coordinator on Combating Antisemitism, said the attacks were part of a broader and deeply concerning trend of rising antisemitism across the continent that had been intensifying since the outbreak of the conflict between Israel and its neighbors. Data from monitoring organizations showed that antisemitic incidents had more than doubled in several European countries since late February.

Security analysts noted the particular vulnerability of Jewish educational institutions, which face the challenge of balancing security requirements with the openness necessary for normal school operations. Enhanced physical barriers, CCTV systems, and police patrols had been deployed at many such institutions after earlier incidents in other European cities.

The mayor of Amsterdam called for a city-wide day of solidarity with the Jewish community and announced that municipal police resources would be specifically redirected to Jewish institutions on a 24-hour basis. She said the attacks were fundamentally incompatible with Amsterdam’s identity as a city built on tolerance and diversity.

Several European Jewish community organizations called for a high-level emergency summit on the security of Jewish communities across the continent, arguing that existing frameworks for monitoring and responding to antisemitism were clearly inadequate given the scale and frequency of recent incidents.