There is no place for anti-Semitism in Switzerland, the country’s president said after the attack on a Jew

“The knife attack in Zurich shocked me,” she wrote in X, adding that her thoughts are with the victim and all Jewish citizens of the country.

Swiss police said Sunday they have arrested a teenager suspected of stabbing and seriously injuring an Orthodox Jew in Zurich.

The city police said in a statement that they suspect that the motive for the attack on Saturday evening is anti-Semitism.

Police said that at 9 p.m. 35 minutes local time (22:35 Lithuanian time) received a report about a dispute between several people. According to initial data, the perpetrator attacked a 50-year-old man and seriously injured him with a knife.

Authorities described the perpetrator as a 15-year-old Swiss citizen and said they arrested him at the scene.

Police later issued a second statement saying they had increased security at certain Jewish-related sites as a precaution. They said they made the decision in consultation with Jewish groups.

The organization of Swiss Jewish communities said it was deeply shocked that a member of the community had become the victim of such an attack.

“Physical attacks against Jewish people are extremely rare in Switzerland,” the report said. – For the past two decades, the Jewish community managed to avoid such life-threatening attacks. However, since October 7, such physical attacks have increased significantly.”

Since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, when Islamist militants invaded Israel on October 7 and brutally killed 1.2 thousand people. people, and about 250 more were taken hostage, anti-Semitic acts increased across Europe. As the Israeli government launched a retaliatory crackdown on Palestinian militants, the number of people killed in the Gaza Strip has exceeded 30,000. tag.

In France, a man wearing a Jewish yarmulke, a traditional headgear for Jewish men, was attacked as he left a Paris synagogue on Friday night, police said.