Soldiers were deployed on the streets of leading Belgian cities on Monday to bolster security for the Jewish community, after antisemitic attacks in Belgium and the Netherlands.
The move follows an explosion this month at a synagogue in Liege that authorities called an antisemitic act.
“From today, we're putting soldiers back on the streets in Brussels and Antwerp because safety is a basic right,” Belgian Defence Minister Theo Francken said in a post on X on Monday.
The deployment, in collaboration with federal police, will provide security at Jewish sites including synagogues and schools, Belgian authorities said in a press release last week.
Antwerp "is again a little safer..... the Jewish community too. We say NO to antisemitism!" Francken said on Monday.
The upgrade in security also follows an arson attack on a synagogue in Rotterdam and an explosion at a Jewish school in Amsterdam in the neighboring Netherlands.
Dutch police have arrested five suspects, aged 17 to 19, over the synagogue attack in Rotterdam.
Neither attack caused injuries.
Antisemitic attacks on the rise
A Belgian defense ministry spokesperson said on Monday that soldiers would be deployed in three different phases: First in Brussels and Antwerp, and later in Liege.
Rights advocates have raised concerns about possible attacks against Jewish communities around the world following the launch of the US-Israeli war with Iran. Four ambulances belonging to a Jewish community organization in north London were set ablaze on Monday.
The US embassy in Oslo was also targeted in a bombing earlier this month, branded by Norwegian investigators as an act of terrorism. There were no injuries in the attack.