Fourth Suspect Arrested in Arson Attack Targeting Jewish Charity Ambulance

At approximately 1:35 a.m. on March 23, 2026, three hooded figures poured accelerant over four ambulances parked on the grounds of Machzike Hadath, an Orthodox synagogue on Highfield Road in Golders Green, northwest London [1]. Within minutes, the vehicles — the entire operational fleet of Hatzola Northwest, a volunteer-run emergency medical service — were engulfed in flames. Oxygen cylinders stored inside the ambulances exploded, shattering windows in a neighbouring apartment block [2]. No one was physically injured. But the attack struck at the heart of a community's capacity to care for its most vulnerable, and set in motion a counter-terrorism investigation now spanning multiple arrests, an alleged Iran-linked claim of responsibility, and questions about the security of minority institutions across Britain.

The Charity Under Attack

Hatzola Northwest operates around the clock, 365 days a year, providing free emergency medical response within a 2.5-mile radius of its Golders Green base [3]. The service handles more than 5,000 calls annually, staffed by 61 fully qualified volunteer medics and paramedics, and maintains an average response time of under five minutes [3]. It receives no government funding, relying entirely on charitable donations [3].

The arson destroyed three of the four ambulances outright and severely damaged the fourth, eliminating 100% of the charity's frontline fleet in a single act [4]. Within 48 hours, the London Ambulance Service loaned four replacement vehicles from its reserve capacity — drawn from a fleet of over 1,000 — to keep Hatzola operational [5]. Health Secretary Wes Streeting announced the government would fund permanent replacements [6]. A public fundraising campaign surpassed £1 million within days [7].

Hatzola's leadership said the service "continued unbroken" after the attack, with volunteers responding to calls using the loaned NHS ambulances [8]. But the incident exposed a structural vulnerability: a community service handling thousands of emergency calls per year had no backup fleet and no hardened security for its vehicles, which were parked in an open area adjacent to the synagogue.

The Investigation: Timeline and Arrests

Counter Terrorism Policing London (CTP) took charge of the investigation from the outset, though the Metropolitan Police has not formally classified the attack as terrorism [9].

March 25: Two men, aged 45 and 47, were arrested on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life. Both were subsequently released on bail pending further inquiries, with a return date in late April [10].

April 1: Three younger suspects were arrested at separate locations in east London. Hamza Iqbal, 20, a British national from Leyton; Rehan Khan, 19, also a British national from Leyton; and an unnamed 17-year-old boy, a dual British-Pakistani national from Walthamstow, were taken into custody [9]. Officers conducted searches at all three addresses.

April 3: The Crown Prosecution Service charged all three with arson being reckless as to whether life would be endangered, under Section 1(2) of the Criminal Damage Act 1971 [9].

April 4: The three appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court in a 45-minute hearing. None entered pleas. All were remanded in custody and ordered to appear at the Old Bailey on April 24 [11]. During the same court session, Metropolitan Police officers recognised a fourth individual in the public gallery. A 19-year-old man was arrested on the spot for arson with intent to endanger life and taken into custody [12].

The arrest of the fourth suspect at the courthouse itself was an unusual turn. The Met stated that officers "recognised the man as being involved in the arson attack" while attending the hearing [12]. No further details about this individual's identity or role have been released.

The Charges and Sentencing Framework

The charge of arson being reckless as to whether life would be endangered is among the most serious property offences in English law. Under the Criminal Damage Act 1971, it carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment [13]. The Sentencing Council guidelines place the offence range from a high-level community order to 12 years' custody, with the life maximum reserved for the most severe cases [13].

The charge does not require proof that the defendants intended to endanger life — only that they were reckless as to whether their actions could do so [13]. Given that the fire caused oxygen cylinders to explode and shattered windows in an occupied residential building, prosecutors appear to have a factual basis for arguing that life was put at risk [2].

Critically, the three charged suspects face arson charges rather than terrorism charges. While CTP is leading the investigation, the decision not to classify the attack as terrorism means the case will proceed through the standard criminal courts. The distinction has practical consequences: terrorism charges carry separate sentencing provisions and can trigger additional investigative powers and post-conviction controls.

The Hate Crime Dimension

The Metropolitan Police confirmed it is treating the attack as a suspected antisemitic hate crime [1]. Under English law, hate crime is not a standalone offence but an aggravating factor at sentencing. Section 66 of the Sentencing Act 2020 directs courts to impose higher penalties where an offence is motivated by or demonstrates hostility based on race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or transgender identity [14].

For religiously aggravated offences under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, specific offences — including criminal damage — carry enhanced maximum sentences when the religious hostility element is proved [14]. The 2026 Crime and Policing Bill, currently before Parliament, proposes extending aggravated offence status to additional protected characteristics, following Law Commission recommendations [15].

The legal threshold for proving hate motivation in the UK is comparatively low by international standards. Under the CPS framework, a hate crime is any offence "perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice" toward a protected characteristic [14]. Prosecutors need not prove that hatred was the sole or primary motivation — evidence of hostility at the time of the offence, or motivation by hostility, is sufficient.

Civil liberties organisations have raised broader concerns about the UK's approach to hate crime enforcement. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) has criticised the related practice of recording "non-crime hate incidents," noting that no police force in England or Wales could provide evidence that the tracking system had prevented a single crime [16]. Legal scholars have questioned the "demonstration pathway" — the use of statements or symbols as evidence of motivation — arguing that expressions of prejudice during a criminal act do not necessarily establish that prejudice was the motive [16]. In the Golders Green case, however, the targeting of identifiably Jewish community infrastructure provides a more straightforward evidentiary basis for hate motivation than many cases where the connection is less direct.

The Iran Connection: Real Network or Phantom Front?

Within hours of the fire, Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya (HAYI) — translated variously as the Islamic Movement of the People of the Right Hand or the Islamic Movement of the Righteous Companions — claimed responsibility via its Telegram channel [17]. The group, which emerged in March 2026 following the outbreak of the Iran war, has also claimed fires at a synagogue in Liège, Belgium; a Jewish school in Amsterdam; and a synagogue in Rotterdam [17].

The group's authenticity is contested. Israeli officials have described HAYI as a recently founded Iranian proxy [18]. European authorities and independent analysts, however, have raised doubts. The Wall Street Journal reported that European investigators suspect the group is a fictitious front created by Iranian intelligence to claim credit for operations while maintaining deniability [17].

Analysts have pointed to several indicators of inauthenticity: the group's Arabic logo misspells the word "Islamic" (al-Islamia), and its imagery features a Soviet SVD Dragunov sniper rifle rather than the AK-47 motifs standard among established Iran-backed groups [17]. These errors, described as "unsophisticated" by experts, deviate from standard Islamist propaganda conventions [17].

Whether the suspects arrested in east London had any operational connection to HAYI, to Iranian intelligence, or to any organised network remains publicly unknown. The suspects' ages — 17 to 20 — and their geographic clustering in east London (Leyton and Walthamstow) could be consistent with either a directed cell or a self-radicalised group. Counter Terrorism Policing has not disclosed what investigative methods led to the April 1 arrests, nor whether digital evidence links the suspects to online extremist communities.

The distinction matters for threat assessment. If the suspects acted on instructions from a state-linked network, the attack represents a new category of threat to Jewish communal infrastructure in the UK. If they acted independently — whether inspired by HAYI propaganda or motivated by their own antisemitic beliefs — the threat model is different but no less serious, suggesting a domestic radicalisation pathway that existing monitoring may have missed.

Antisemitic Incidents in the UK: The Statistical Context

The Golders Green arson occurred against a backdrop of historically elevated antisemitic hostility in Britain. The Community Security Trust (CST), which monitors antisemitic incidents in the UK, recorded 3,700 incidents in 2025 — the second-highest annual total in its history [19]. This followed 4,298 incidents in 2023, the all-time record, driven by the aftermath of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel [19].

Source: Community Security Trust

Data as of Feb 11, 2026CSV

Incidents of damage and desecration of Jewish property — the category most relevant to the Golders Green attack — rose 38% in 2025 to a record 217 cases, including attacks on homes, vehicles, synagogues, schools, and businesses [19]. The monthly average of 308 incidents in 2025 was exactly double the pre-October 7 average of 154 incidents per month [19].

Official Home Office data tells a similar story: police forces in England and Wales recorded 3,282 religious hate crimes targeting Jewish people in the year to March 2024, more than double the 1,543 recorded in the previous year [20].

Prosecution rates for antisemitic offences are harder to isolate from published data. The CST and Home Office figures track recorded incidents and police-flagged hate crimes, respectively, but neither agency publishes a specific conviction rate for antisemitic property crimes compared to equivalent non-hate-motivated offences. This data gap makes it difficult to assess whether antisemitic arson and vandalism cases are prosecuted with the same vigour as comparable crimes without a hate element.

International Comparison

The UK is not alone in experiencing a surge. In the United States, the Anti-Defamation League recorded 9,354 antisemitic incidents in 2024, the highest in its 46-year tracking history and a 344% increase over five years [21]. France documented 1,570 antisemitic acts in 2024, accounting for 62% of all religious hate crimes in the country, with physical assaults comprising over 10% [22]. Germany recorded 1,383 incidents in Berlin alone in the same year [22].

Source: ADL / CST / National Reports

Data as of May 1, 2025CSV

Policy responses vary. France has deployed military personnel to guard Jewish sites since the 2015 terror attacks and maintains a dedicated antisemitism coordinator within the Interior Ministry [22]. Germany expanded its domestic intelligence monitoring of antisemitic networks following the 2019 Halle synagogue shooting. The UK relies primarily on the CST's network of volunteer security guards at synagogues and Jewish schools, supplemented by periodic police patrols — an arrangement that, as the Golders Green attack demonstrated, does not extend to ancillary community assets like charity vehicles.

Security Gaps and the Vulnerability of Community Organisations

The attack exposed a gap in the security architecture protecting Jewish communal infrastructure. While synagogues, schools, and major community centres in the UK benefit from CST security assessments and, in some cases, physical guarding, organisations like Hatzola — which operate from smaller premises and rely on vehicles parked in semi-public locations — fall outside the standard protective perimeter.

In the House of Lords debate on March 26, peers pressed the government on what additional security measures would be provided [23]. London Mayor Sadiq Khan announced increased police patrols across "vulnerable areas" in the city, extending beyond Golders Green [7]. Prime Minister Keir Starmer described the attack as "deeply shocking" [4].

The government's decision to fund Hatzola's replacement vehicles addressed the immediate operational crisis but left open the longer-term question of who pays for hardening minority community organisations against targeted violence. Hatzola, which runs entirely on donations, had no budget for security infrastructure before the attack and no insurance payout sufficient to cover both vehicle replacement and protective measures [3].

The incident raises a broader policy question: if volunteer emergency services, charity vehicles, and small community organisations are now targets, the existing model of concentrating security resources on high-profile sites — synagogues, embassies, government buildings — may be insufficient. The cost of extending security to every Jewish charity, school bus, and community centre would be substantial, and it is unclear whether that burden should fall on the communities themselves, on local police forces already operating under budget constraints, or on central government.

What Comes Next

The three charged suspects are scheduled to appear at the Old Bailey on April 24 [11]. The fourth suspect, arrested at court on April 4, has not yet been charged [12]. The two men arrested on March 25 and released on bail remain under investigation [10].

Key unanswered questions include whether prosecutors will seek to add terrorism charges, whether the investigation will establish any operational link between the suspects and HAYI or Iranian intelligence, and whether additional suspects remain at large. The involvement of Counter Terrorism Policing suggests investigators have not ruled out a broader conspiracy, but the decision to charge the offence as arson rather than a terrorism act indicates that, as of early April, the evidentiary threshold for terrorism prosecution had not been met.

For the Jewish community in Golders Green and across Britain, the attack was both a specific act of destruction and a signal. Hatzola's ambulances were not military targets or political symbols — they were medical vehicles operated by volunteers to save lives. Their destruction sent a message that no part of Jewish communal life is beyond reach. The strength of the legal, political, and community response will determine whether that message is answered.