Supporters of Hamas gather in Berlin. Photo: Reuters/M. Golejewski

Germany’s Interior Minister said on Friday that she supported the deportation of Hamas supporters from the country, following several days of angry pro-Palestinian demonstrations along with an astronomical rise in the number of antisemitic incidents compared with the same period last year.

“If we can deport Hamas supporters, we have to do that,” Nancy Faeser told reporters at a press conference on Friday.

She added that the German “security authorities have currently placed an even stronger focus on the Islamist scene,” citing last Monday’s attack by an Islamist gunman in Brussels in which two Swedish citizens were murdered as a key reason for the growing concern.

Addressing the precipitous rise in antisemitic incidents since the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in southern Israel, with more than 1,100 recorded, Faeser said that while peaceful demonstrations were permitted, there would be “no tolerance for antisemitic and anti-Israel incitement and no tolerance for violence.”

Data published by the Federal Association of Antisemitism Research and Information Centers (RIAS), a government funded body, on Thursday showed a 240 percent increase in antisemitic incidents during the week that followed the pogrom. The vast majority — 91 percent — were motivated by hatred of the State of Israel.

The RIAS report’s release coincided with serious rioting by pro-Hamas agitators in Berlin’s heavily Muslim Neukölln district on Wednesday night, which resulted in injuries to 65 police officers and 174 arrests.

An attempted arson attack on Wednesday morning at a synagogue in Berlin failed to cause damage after the Molotov cocktails lobbed by the assailants missed their target and exploded on the sidewalk.

In a separate development, Germany’s Defense Minister on Friday said that he concurred with the view of Israeli and US intelligence analysts that a misfired missile launched by Palestinian terrorists, and not an Israeli airstrike, was responsible for the explosion earlier this week in a car park adjacent to the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza City.

“Everything suggests that it wasn’t the Israelis,” Boris Pistorius told the broadcaster ZDF. “What benefit would the Israelis get from attacking a civilian hospital? This is completely beyond the imagination and makes no sense for what Israel is planning.”

Pistorius added: “Israel is not a terrorist state. Hamas is the terrorist organization. And therefore one must assume that in case of doubt, it was actually a misguided rocket that led to this tragedy.”