Guard injured, attacker killed outside Israeli embassy in Serbia
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A spokeswoman for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs calls the incident an "attempted terrorist attack."
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Police officers work at the scene close to the Israeli embassy in Belgrade, Serbia, on June 29, 2024. (AP)
A Serbian guard was injured with a crossbow while guarding the Israeli embassy in Belgrade on Saturday. According to Serbia's Interior Ministry, the officer in question shot the assailant dead after his injury.
Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said in a statement that the assailant shot a bolt at the officer, striking him in the neck, adding that the officer "used a weapon in self-defense to shoot the attacker, who died as a result of his injuries.”
The guard was taken to Belgrade's major hospital, where he is awaiting surgery to remove the bolt from his neck.
A spokeswoman for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the event an "attempted terrorist attack." At the same time, Dacic told reporters that "there is no other motive why someone would attack a gendarme outside the Israeli Embassy," referring to "terrorism".
Despite the attacker's identity still being a mystery, Dacic reported that one individual was apprehended near the location of the incident. Police are looking into a suspected network and linkages to overseas "terrorist groups", he said.
"There are indications that those are individuals already known to the security services as the Wahhabi movement," added Dacic. "But this still has not been confirmed."
The action could be due to international uproar and anger about the genocide in Gaza being perpetrated by Israeli occupation forces (IOF) backed by Western powers, mainly the US and Europe.
In March, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine urged people worldwide to actively oppose the Israeli occupation and its allies, intensify popular protests, and besiege Israeli occupation embassies. The PFLP called for continued international pressure to end the genocidal campaign in Gaza and to demand that Western nations halt arms exports to the occupying forces, which are used to perpetrate atrocities against the Palestinian people.
Days ago, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic alerted his country during a grim national address about the state of international affairs, warning that the world was living through the most dire geopolitical crisis since World War II.
"Dear citizens of Serbia, respected journalists…today I want to start my address by asking the citizens of our country, because I will exclusively speak about Serbia, without mentioning political parties, their interests, or anything similar. I will talk about the problems we are facing," he said, in a speech broadcasted by Radio Television of Serbia (RTS).
Vucic resorted to honesty regarding the next course of action the world might witness, basing his judgment on political experience and discussions with different world leaders, and told the people of Serbia that escalations are to be expected in the upcoming months, with Europe and the world facing "very serious consequences."
He called for open discourse regarding the situation, stressing, "We must be firmly determined to do our job in the best possible way, to preserve peace, to ensure economic growth."
However, he did claim Serbia would get away with a more favorable state than the rest of Europe.
