(8 Nov 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ben Gurion Airport, Israel – 8 November 2024
1. Wide of people arriving
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Ben Mansford, Chief Executive Officer for Maccabi Tel Aviv: ++STARTS ON PREVIOUS SHOT; PARTLY COVERED WITH SHOT 3++
"It was a worry when you started to see some of the early footage of defenseless fans, you know, and our fans having to jump in rivers to try and escape. It was, it’s like nothing, I don’t think a lot of us have worked in professional football all of our lives and nobody’s seen anything like that. And I’m just so honestly, just so happy and so grateful that at this moment in time, we believe everyone’s safe, everyone’s out of hospital, and we’ll all be a lot happier when everyone’s back in Israel. We’re a Jewish football team wearing yellow and wearing the star of David and clearly this was nothing to do with Ajax fans. We have a great collaboration between the two clubs, and there’s a synergy between the fans. So clearly this was something where our fans, because of their Jewishness, were clearly targeted."
3. Police officers on quad bikes
4. SOUNDBITE (Hebrew) Alyia Cohen, Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer fan:
"We were without Maccabi shirts. We were wearing black shirts like the one I’m wearing now. They did not recognize that we were Israeli so we moved to the other side of the street and, thank god, we were miraculously saved. Nothing happened to us but there was big chaos there that we did not expect."
5. SOUNDBITE (Hebrew) Eran Zahavi, Maccabi Tel Aviv captain: ++PARTLY COVERED WITH SHOT 7++
“We all saw what happened, shameful. This is the world we live in now, unfortunately. Our fans were very intimidated when they went through the worst there. Unfortunately, they came to see soccer and that’s what happened."
6. Zahavi leaving airport
STORYLINE:
The Chief Executive Officer for soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv said on Friday that he believes his team’s fans were attacked "because of their Jewishness" as the team arrived back in Israel.
Young people on scooters attacked Israeli fans in hit-and-run assaults overnight after a soccer game in Amsterdam apparently fueled by calls to target Jewish people spread on social media, Dutch authorities said Friday.
"Clearly this was nothing to do with Ajax fans. We have a great collaboration between the two clubs, and there’s a synergy between the fans. So clearly this was something where our fans, because of their Jewishness, were clearly targeted," said Maccabi Tel Aviv CEO Ben Mansford.
Maccabi Tel Aviv captain Eran Zahavi called the attacks "shameful" as he arrived back in Israel on Friday.
"This is the world we live in now, unfortunately. Our fans were very intimidated when they went through the worst there. Unfortunately, they came to see soccer and that’s what happened," he said.
Five people were treated in the hospital and released, while some 20 to 30 people suffered light injuries, police said. At least 62 suspects were arrested, with 10 still in custody, Amsterdam’s public prosecutor, René de Beukelaer, told reporters at a news conference Friday.
With condemnation of the violence as antisemitic pouring in from around Europe, the attacks shattered Amsterdam’s long-cherished view of itself as a beacon of tolerance and haven for persecuted religions, including Sephardic Jews from Portugal and Spain.
Afterwards, youths on scooters crisscrossed the city in search of Israeli fans, punching and kicking them and then fleeing quickly to evade police, Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema said.
Police had to escort some fans back to hotels, according to authorities.
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