Belgium’s Jewish community remained the most frequently targeted group for extremist and terrorist threats in 2025, according to a new government report, raising fresh alarm over the security of Jews in the country.

Belgium’s Coordination Unit for Threat Analysis, known as OCAD, released its annual report on Tuesday, pointing to a persistently elevated threat environment driven largely by Islamist and jihadist ideologies.

Belgian authorities recorded 157 extremist or terrorist threat reports in 2025, down from 213 the previous year. Despite the overall decline, the Jewish community remained the most common target of potential attacks, according to the report.

OCAD found that Islamist extremism remained the dominant threat category, accounting for 39 percent of all recorded cases and driven largely by jihadist and Islamist ideological narratives.

Right-wing extremist motives accounted for 13 percent of reports, while anti-government or anti-establishment threats made up 8 percent. Left-wing extremist cases remained comparatively low at 4 percent.

Authorities warned, however, that right-wing extremism is increasingly embedded in Belgium’s threat landscape, noting that the number of related threat reports doubled in 2025. The report described such threats as generally involving “low-intensity violence,” while also identifying a growing convergence of nationalist, racist, and conspiratorial ideologies. Antisemitism was cited as a major underlying driver of those movements.

The findings come as Belgian Jewish groups have warned of a growing climate of intimidation targeting Jews and Israelis, even as official figures suggest some categories of incidents may be declining. Community leaders have cautioned that many antisemitic incidents are never reported to law enforcement, meaning the actual scale of hostility may be higher than official statistics indicate.

Belgium, like much of Western Europe, has seen a surge in antisemitism since the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, when terrorists murdered some 1,200 people and kidnapped more than 250 others.

According to Unia, Belgium’s Interfederal Center for Equal Opportunities, 192 reports of antisemitism and Holocaust denial were filed in 2025, following a record 270 in 2024. Before the Oct. 7 atrocities, only 31 antisemitic cases were reported in Belgium in 2022.

The report also comes amid a widening controversy over Belgian authorities’ prosecution of Jewish ritual circumcisers, or mohels, for allegedly performing illegal circumcisions. Jewish and political leaders have warned that the case threatens religious freedom and could set a dangerous precedent for Jewish life in Europe.

On Tuesday, dozens of Jewish leaders from across Europe urged Belgian authorities to drop the case, warning in an open letter published by the European Jewish Association that the prosecution sends a chilling message to Belgian Jews.

“All the words of politicians about the importance of Jewish life in Europe mean nothing if they do not act immediately to stop this injustice,” the signatories wrote.