The move follows suspected jihadist attacks in the country and neighboring Netherlands.
Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken on Monday announced that his government would deploy military forces to defend Jewish community sites, following a suspected jihadist attack last week outside a synagogue in Liege.
“To protect our Jewish community, we are deploying military personnel to support security on our streets. The safety of every citizen must be guaranteed. Antisemitism and hatred against Jews will never be tolerated. We will stand firm against it, always,” Francken wrote on X.
The March 9 explosion outside the Liege synagogue was the first of a series of attacks that Israel’s Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combatting Antisemitism on Monday traced to a hitherto unknown Islamist terrorist group called Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya. In videos uploaded online, the group was linked to at least three additional attacks over the past week, outside a synagogue in Rotterdam, a Jewish school in Amsterdam and also a bank in Amsterdam, the ministry said.
