The government in Vienna will convene a crisis meeting on Friday morning to discuss the Hamas-Israel conflict, and the conflict’s impact on security in Austria.
In the face of the “drastic development of the security situation in the Middle East, conservative Chancellor Karl Nehammer and Green Vice-Chancellor Werner Kogler ordered the impromptu meeting for Friday, the Defence Ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
Heads of Austria’s intelligence services will be briefing the government on the current state of the conflict. At the same time, the attending interior, defence, and foreign ministers will also discuss resulting security threats within Austria, according to information obtained by news agency APA.
Since the start of the conflict, Austria has seen a “significant” increase in anti-Semitic incidents, including “physical attacks and damage to property as well as threats”, the Israeli Cultural Community (IKG) in Vienna told profil magazine on Wednesday.
Shortly after the first Hamas attacks in Israel, Austria, like France, Germany and the UK, announced that it would step up police protection of Jewish sites and has since involved the military in this task.
On Wednesday, Vienna also issued the highest-level terror warning in the wake of the Brussels attack and the situation in the Middle East.
At the same time, the “subjective feeling of security” in many Jewish communities is still severely impacted, the IKG said in a statement on Wednesday.
(Julia Dahm I EURACTIV.de)
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