In a racially motivated attack, seven individuals were arrested over the past year in connection to setting fire to an Israeli-owned hotel and a synagogue in the center of Athens. On May 15, an improvised incendiary bomb was thrown on a building that housed an Israeli-owned hotel and restaurant, resulting in charges of arson that endangered human life and causing damage to foreign-owned property for a 25-year-old Greek woman, two Iranians aged 46 and 36, and a 44-year-old Afghan accomplice.
In a separate incident on June 18, a Greek man threw a flammable substance at the entrance of a synagogue in Athens. The perpetrator was riding a motorcycle with an Afghan man who was arrested as an accomplice. Both men were charged with arson, possession of a weapon, and robbery.
Greek authorities also arrested two men suspected of belonging to a group that planned an arson attack or assault on an Israeli restaurant and synagogue in Athens last March. The Israeli Mossad commended the Greek police’s response to these arrests and pointed fingers at Iran for orchestrating the operations.
