London’s Metropolitan Police announced Wednesday the creation of a specialized team dedicated to protecting the city’s Jewish communities, responding to an unprecedented spike in hate crimes and violent attacks.

The new “community protection team” will deploy 100 additional officers combining neighborhood policing with specialist protection and counterterrorism capabilities, the Met said in a statement. The unit aims to provide “a more visible, intelligence-led and coordinated presence” across London’s Jewish neighborhoods.

“It brings together experienced local officers who know their communities, supported by specialist capabilities, to provide more visible, consistent and intelligence-led protection,” Met Commissioner Mark Rowley said in a statement.

The new unit emerges from a troubling pattern of antisemitic violence. In March, an arson attack destroyed four Hatzolah ambulances. Authorities have also investigated separate incidents involving bottles suspected of containing gasoline thrown at two shuls, a stabbing attack that injured two visibly Jewish men in Golders Green, and more.

The Met said it arrested over 80 people in the past four weeks in connection with antisemitic hate crimes and the string of arson attacks. Some of the incidents are under examination for possible links to Iran amid the ongoing U.S.-Iran conflict.

Rowley previously indicated he had been in discussions with government ministers about creating a larger 300-officer policing team, which he described as necessary to address what he called the greatest-ever threat facing British Jews.

The announced unit, roughly a third of the initially proposed force size, represents what the commissioner characterized as “an important step in strengthening our response to the sustained threats Jewish communities are facing.”

The Met stressed that while the new unit will focus primarily on protecting the Jewish community, it is “also intended to provide a blueprint for how policing responds when tensions rise” in other communities. The force added that the initiative does not deprioritize protections for other groups.

“Hate crime in all its forms—including ongoing efforts to tackle racism, anti-Muslim hate crime, homophobia and other forms of hatred in the capital—remains a core policing priority,” the Met said.

The announcement comes as England’s chief prosecutor signaled a tougher law enforcement response. Stephen Parkinson, the chief prosecutor for England and Wales, announced Tuesday that hate crime prosecutions will be fast-tracked in response to the “deeply troubling rise in antisemitic incidents.”

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)