Belgian police man the perimeter established around a synagogue on Leon Fredericq street, after it was struck overnight by a blast in Liege on March 9, 2026. A synagogue was damaged in a blast in the early hours of March 9, in Liege, eastern Belgium, police said, adding they were investigating the cause of the explosion. No injuries were reported, with "only material damage", a spokesman for the police in the city of Liege said in a statement. (Photo by JOHN THYS / AFP)
Belgium’s prime minister vowed Monday to combat antisemitism after a pre-dawn blast damaged a synagogue in the country’s east, in what prosecutors said was being investigated as a suspected “terrorist” crime.
Police said the explosion took place around 4am (0300 GMT) in front of the synagogue in the city of Liege, causing “material damage” but no injuries.
Blast damages synagogue entrance
“An explosive device was planted or thrown — I don’t know which — outside one of the synagogue’s main doors,” rabbi Joshua Nejman told AFP, saying the blast “took out the windows and the door itself.”
The rabbi said that “fortunately” the 120-year-old building did not suffer further damage — but that he was left shaken.
Posting on social media, Prime Minister Bart De Wever voiced “solidarity with the Jewish community in Liege and across the country.”
“Antisemitism is an attack on our values and our society, and we must fight it unequivocally,” he wrote.
Interior Minister Bernard Quintin slammed a “despicable antisemitic act that directly targeted Belgium’s Jewish community”.
“Security measures around similar sites will continue to be expanded,” Quintin said in a social media post.
The federal prosecutor’s office said the circumstances of the incident were being investigated “in view of possible indications of a terrorist offence”.
It did not immediately qualify the explosion as an antisemitic incident.
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‘Material damage’
Built in 1899, the Liege synagogue also serves as a museum for the history of the city’s Jewish community, according to the temple’s website.
A security perimeter was quickly erected with officers at the scene.
“I’m going to try to calm my heart, because it is beating faster and faster this morning,” said rabbi Nejman, adding he was confident police would shed light on the incident with the help of CCTV footage.
“I need to talk to the community, to talk to everyone,” he said.
After the blast, the Coordinating Committee of Jewish Organisations in Belgium (CCOJB), an umbrella group, urged authorities to step up security at Jewish sites across the country.
“Tonight’s attack is part of a disturbing explosion in antisemitic acts,” it said.
Belgium’s Jewish community numbers some 40 000 people, mainly in Antwerp and Brussels, and Jewish places of worship have been subject to heightened security measures on occasion in recent years.
Belgium authorities had stepped up security after Palestinian militant group Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which sparked the war in Gaza.
Officials pointed to a rise in antisemitic acts in Belgium at that time.
Willy Demeyer, the mayor of Liege, condemned what he described as “an antisemitic act”.
“We cannot allow foreign conflicts to be imported into our city,” he told public broadcaster RTBF, in a seeming reference to the Middle East war triggered by US and Israeli strikes on Iran.
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