Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday asked his counterpart in the Netherlands to provide more security for Israelis after fans of the Maccabi Tel Aviv FC  soccer team were attacked in Amsterdam on Thursday by anti-Israel protesters.

The violence erupted following a UEFA Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli air carrier El Al is sending planes to Amsterdam on Shabbat to evacuate Israelis, after the Israeli Defense Forces said it was standing down on a plan to “immediately deploy a rescue mission” to the city.

Officials in the Netherlands say 20 to 30 people were injured in the attacks.

“The police have launched a major investigation into multiple violent incidents. So far, it is known that five people have been taken to the hospital and 62 individuals have been arrested,” Amsterdam Police said in a statement.

ISRAELI SOCCER FANS TARGETED IN WAVE OF VIOLENCE IN AMSTERDAM

Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema called the violence “an eruption of antisemitism that we had hoped never again to see in Amsterdam,” according to The Associated Press. 

She reportedly said youths in the city were riding around on scooters in search of Israeli fans, before punching and kicking them and fleeing quickly to avoid law enforcement. 

Ofek Ziv, a Maccabi fan from the Israeli city of Petah Tikva, told the AP that someone threw a rock that hit him in the head as he and a friend left the stadium. They fled the area in a taxi.

In this image taken from video, police in riot gear run towards protesters, after pro-Palestinian supporters marched near the soccer stadium in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on Thursday, Nov. 7. (RTL Nieuws via AP)

“I’m very scared, it’s very striking. This shouldn’t happen to anyone, specifically in Amsterdam. Lots of friends were hurt, injured, kidnapped, robbed, and the police didn’t come to help us,” he said.

Speaking with Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof after the violence, Netanyahu said he takes the “premeditated attacks” seriously. He urged Schoof to bolster security for Israelis in the country. 

Anti-Israel agitators demonstrate at Amsterdam’s Anton de Komplein square ahead of the UEFA Europa League football match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv on Nov. 7.  (Jeroen Jumelet/ANP/AFP via Getty Images)

Israel has also added more phone lines at the embassy and in the Foreign Ministry’s situation room.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog called Thursday’s attacks the most alarming thing to happen to Jews since the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas terrorists in southern Israel.

“We woke up this morning to shocking images and videos that since October 7th, we had hoped never to see again: an antisemitic pogrom currently taking place against Maccabi Tel Aviv fans and Israeli citizens in the heart of Amsterdam, Netherlands,” Herzog wrote on X.

“This is a serious incident, a warning sign for any country that wishes to uphold the values of freedom.” 

There are reports that some fans were chanting anti-Arab slogans before the game. In one social media video that Reuters says it has verified, the traveling Maccabi fans were seen setting off flares and chanting “Ole, ole, let the IDF win, we will f–k the Arabs,” in an apparent reference to the Israel Defense Forces.

Fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv stage a pro-Israel demonstration at the Dam Square, lighting up flares and chanting slogans ahead of the UEFA Europa League match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax in Amsterdam, Netherlands on Thursday. (Mouneb Taim/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs says it “strongly condemns the anti-Arab slogans and hostile actions carried out by supporters of an Israeli football club in Amsterdam.

“These acts included the desecration and removal of the Palestinian flag from symbolic sites that signify solidarity with Palestinian rights and resistance against the ongoing occupation and systematic violence in Gaza,” it added.

TWO JEWISH STUDENTS AT DEPAUL UNIVERSITY TARGETED ON CAMPUS BY MASKED ATTACKERS

An Israeli Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer fan gestures as they arrive at the Ben Gurion International Airport after overnight attacks following the match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax in Amsterdam. (Reuters/Thomas Peter)

The Dutch prime minister on Friday called the “antisemitic” attacks on Israeli soccer fans “unacceptable” and said the “perpetrators will be tracked down and prosecuted.”

Videos on social media showed multiple fights happening in the streets outside the stadium where Maccabi Tel Aviv FC was playing Ajax. Days earlier, Spanish media reported that anti-Israel agitators would protest outside the stadium to target Israel’s soccer club and its fans.

ANTI-ISRAEL PROTESTERS HANDED LEGAL SETBACK IN EFFORT TO EXPAND DNC RALLY

Supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv hold flags at Dam square ahead of the Europa League football match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv, in Amsterdam on Nov. 7. (Jeroen Jumelet/ANP/AFP via Getty Images)

“We have become the Gaza of Europe,” populist Dutch political leader Geert Wilders of the anti-Muslim immigration Freedom Party in the Netherlands said following the attacks.

“Muslims with Palestinian flags hunting down Jews. I will NOT accept that. NEVER,” he wrote on X. “The authorities will be held accountable for their failure to protect the Israeli citizens. Never again.”

The IDF has barred soldiers from flying to Amsterdam, but “exceptional requests will be examined individually,” the military stated.

Fox News’ Greg Norman contributed to this report.

Boko, 54, inaugurated just nine days after his party beat the Botswana Democratic Party, which governed for six decades.

Botswana has sworn in Duma Boko as the country’s new president after his landslide election victory kicked out the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), which had been in power for nearly 60 years.

On Friday, Boko, 54, took the oath in front of several thousand people in the national stadium just nine days after his Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) crushed the BDP at the ballot box.

“For nearly three score years, our democracy remained unbroken, unproven and untested. On the 30th of October this year, together, we tested this democracy,” Boko said in a speech.

“It is with pride, and perhaps even a tinge of relief, that I can proudly say we have passed this test with flying colours,” he said to cheers from the crowd.

“Together, we usher in a new political dawn.”

Last week, Boko’s left-leaning UDC won 36 seats in parliament compared with just four for the conservative BDP, in a stunning reversal for the party that had governed diamond-rich Botswana since its independence from the United Kingdom in 1966.

Former President Mokgweetsi Masisi, who conceded defeat two days after the vote as his party’s colossal defeat became clear, was in the audience alongside leaders of other regional countries including Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Although the crowd booed Masisi, the new president praised his predecessor’s “statesmanship”.

“Please give him some love,” Boko told the stadium.

“Botswana has set the example of a true democracy at work for the whole world to see and emulate. For that singular act, the former president will remain inscribed prominently in our hearts.”

Young voters made up about a third of the more than one million people registered to vote in the arid and sparsely populated country.

Botswana, often held up as one of Africa’s greatest success stories, ranks among the wealthiest and most stable democracies on the continent. But a global downturn in demand for mined diamonds, which account for more than 80 percent of Southern African exports, has taken a toll on the economy.

Many voters said they wanted change after nearly six decades of BDP rule, with the main concerns being unemployment, the disparity between rich and poor and the economy, which has been hit by plummeting diamond sales, the mainstay of Botswana’s revenues.

Masisi’s government was also accused of mismanagement, nepotism and corruption.

Boko has said a priority for his government will be to stabilise relations with partners in the diamond industry, while diversifying the economy away from its dependence on the international diamond market.