Met forms team after attacks on Jewish community

A £25 million government funding package for protective policing was announced, with £18 million allocated to the Metropolitan Police. The force said the funding had already helped fund an additional 1,000 officer shifts per week, largely through overtime and redeployment.

The Metropolitan Police reported that about 50 people had been arrested following the series of antisemitic hate crimes in recent weeks, with eight charged.

The Metropolitan Police announced the creation of a Community Protection Team of around 100 officers to protect London's Jewish communities. The team will include personnel from neighbourhood policing, specialist protection, and counter-terrorism capabilities and will initially focus on antisemitic threats. Sir Mark Rowley described the move as an important step and signalled that longer-term investment would be needed; the approach could later be used to protect other communities facing spikes in hate crime.

In April 2026, 140 antisemitic hate crime offences were recorded, the highest monthly total since the Met changed its hate crime recording method in March 2024.

The Metropolitan Police changed how it records hate crime in March 2024, affecting subsequent crime reporting bases such as April figures.

The Hamas-Israel conflict began in October 2023, with antisemitic hate crime offences rising from 61 in September to 518 in October 2023. The period saw attacks including on synagogues, a Jewish ambulance charity, and a memorial wall in Golders Green.