By Issy Ronald, Jomana Karadsheh, Florence Davey-Attlee, Laura Sharman, CNN
(CNN) — A man has been charged with attempted murder after two Jewish men were stabbed in London in what police described as a terrorist incident.
The two men aged 76 and 34 were stabbed in Golders Green, north London, on Wednesday.
On Friday morning, Essa Suleiman was charged with two counts of attempted murder and one count of possession of a bladed article in a public place in relation to the attack, police said.
The 45-year-old, from Camberwell in south London, was also charged with attempted murder in connection with a separate incident on the same day, just south of Tower Bridge several miles away.
He was remanded in custody and is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Friday.
Both victims in the Golders Green attack were treated in hospital after the stabbing. The 34-year-old has since been released while the 76-year-old remains there in a stable condition, police said.
Police declared the attack a terrorist incident and said a counterterrorism probe remains ongoing.
This stabbing follows a string of attacks targeting synagogues and other communal buildings that have left London’s Jewish community in a heightened state of anxiety.
On Thursday, the UK terrorism threat level was raised from “substantial” to “severe” by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, meaning a terror attack is “highly likely.” Before the level was raised, an attack was considered “likely.”
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley said he’d submitted a proposal to the government about bolstering police resources for Jewish communities in London.
Rowley warned in an interview with Times Radio that the UK was facing a “pandemic of antisemitism.”
“We need work done upstream to tackle those attitudes in society, which are far too prevalent,” the police commissioner said.
Spate of attacks
In March, arsonists set fire to four ambulances belonging to a Jewish charity, also in Golders Green. Four people were subsequently charged by police.
Weeks later, a synagogue and the former premises of a Jewish charity, both in north London, were attacked.
Earlier this week, just a few streets from the site of Wednesday’s stabbings, a suspected arson attack targeted a memorial wall that displayed photos of protesters killed by Iranian security forces during a brutal crackdown earlier this year and photos of those killed in Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attacks in southern Israel.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday at the site of the stabbings, Rowley said there had been a rise in racist and antisemitic hate crime. “We know that some individuals are being encouraged, persuaded or paid to commit acts of violence on behalf of foreign organizations and hostile states,” the police commissioner said.
Police have “significantly stepped up” activity in the capital because of the recent attacks, Rowley said.
Meanwhile, Iran’s embassy in the UK said following the Golders Green attack that it “categorically rejects” allegations of involvement in “violent activities or incidents in the United Kingdom.”
“Such baseless accusations… lack credible evidence and appear to serve narrow political agendas,” the embassy said in a post on X Thursday.
Antisemitic attacks in the United Kingdom have increased since 2023, when Israel’s brutal war in Gaza began in response to the Hamas’ attacks.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer described the “antisemitic attack” as “utterly appalling” on Wednesday.
“We all need to … be absolutely clear in our determination to deal with any of these offense