'Terror attack' foiled at Israel's Sweden embassy

Israel's embassy in Stockholm was the target of an attempted attack, the ambassador said Wednesday, after a bomb squad destroyed what Swedish police called "a dangerous object".

Police said the "live" device had been found by staff on the premises of the Israeli embassy in the Swedish capital, without specifying what the object was.

"We were alerted at 1:08 pm (1208 GMT) by the embassy that they had found an object they believed to be dangerous," Daniel Wikdahl with the Stockholm police told AFP.

An area around the object was closed off and Wikdahl added that the national bomb squad had been called to scene and had decided to destroy the object.

"The object has been destroyed by the national bomb squad, and our assessment is that it was live," the police officer said.

Police have opened an investigation, but Wikdahl declined to specify what the object was, citing the ongoing enquiries.

Swedish tabloids Expressen and Aftonbladet reported it was a hand grenade, citing unidentified sources, while Aftonbladet said it had been thrown over the fence surrounding the mission and had landed on the ground near the building.

"Today we were subject to an attempted attack against the Embassy of Israel in Stockholm and its employees," Israeli ambassador to Sweden Ziv Nevo Kulman said in a post to X.

"We will not be intimidated by terror," Kulman added.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson called the situation "very serious".

"An attempted attack on an embassy is an attack both on those who work there and on Sweden," he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Sweden's government in late October pledged 10 million kronor ($1 million) to increase security at Jewish institutions and congregations, following increased anti-Semitism in the wake of Israel's war on Gaza.

In early December, Kristersson took part in a march against anti-Semitism in Stockholm.

Swedish police said at the time they had received 120 reports of anti-Semitic crimes since the outbreak of the war.