Thousands of anti-racism protesters took to the streets across the United Kingdom on Wednesday, effectively countering a series of far-right rallies that had been planned to target immigration centers. The massive turnout of counter-protesters appeared to thwart what many feared could have been another day of rioting.

Following days of violence fueled by the deadly stabbing attack that left 3 children dead at a dance class celebrating the US singer Taylor Swift's music in Southport, police had prepared for potential unrest. Far-right groups took to the streets over unconfirmed reports speculating that the attacker was Muslim. On social media, they had called for protests at more than 100 visa processing centers and immigration lawyers' offices around the country at 8 pm local time.

However, by early evening, thousands of counter-protesters had assembled in over a dozen cities to protect the immigration centers from potential far-right targeting. Chants of "There are many, many more of us than you" echoed through the anti-racism demonstrations across the country.

The counter-protests were bolstered by a significantly stronger police presence compared to the weekend, with virtually no sign of far-right supporters. While it's unclear if this represents a turning point, fears of another night of unrest have subsided for now.

In Walthamstow, east London, the immigration center was entirely boarded up and protected by a heavy police presence. Approximately 3,000 to 4,000 counter-protesters surrounded the site.

An organizer addressed the hastily assembled crowd through a megaphone, saying, "We today have got such brilliant numbers in our community. We have shown them whose streets these really are. These are our streets."

The worst of the past week's violence was concentrated in northern England. In Rotherham on Sunday, rioters set fire to a hotel used to house asylum seekers, with more than 200 people inside. Large crowds shouting "Enough is enough" and "Get 'em out" were seen clashing with police in several other cities.

Unlike last week's protests that escalated into racist violence, Wednesday's demonstrations were overseen by a substantial police presence separating protesters and counter-protesters. At least three right-wing demonstrators were arrested during altercations between the two groups.

Anti-immigration protesters have often accused police of double standards in responding to their demonstrations, claiming unfair treatment and giving prime minister Keir Starmer the nickname "two-tier Keir."

The nickname has gained traction on social media, with Elon Musk echoing it in a post on X, the platform he owns. Musk claimed that "civil war is inevitable" in response to a post blaming the violent demonstrations on the effects of "mass migration and open borders."

The fizzling out of the planned far-right protests comes as a relief for the new Labour government and for communities that had braced for another night of rioting. It may also indicate that many have been deterred from taking to the streets after previous far-right protests turned violent, resulting in hundreds of arrests and some immediate prison sentences.

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Anti-immigration protesters attacked a hotel housing migrants in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, as unrest entered its fifth day across the United Kingdom, The Telegraph reports. The incident marks a significant escalation in the ongoing demonstrations that have gripped several cities.

According to The Telegraph, videos shared on social media show police retreating under a barrage of objects thrown by protesters outside the Holiday Inn Express in Manvers, Rotherham. Footage also captured rioters breaking windows and storming the building, with a fire breaking out at one of the entrances.

NOW - "Migrant hotel" besieged and stormed in Rotherham, England.pic.twitter.com/0d6f0fnPoQ

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) August 4, 2024

 The crowd, many waving Union Jack and St George's flags and some wearing masks, was heard chanting, "Get them out" and "Yorkshire." Counter-protesters from Stand Up to Racism were initially present at the scene but reportedly left the area as tensions escalated. Police vehicles blocked a road, and a line of officers was earlier seen outside the hotel entrance.

In response to the escalating situation, Sarah Champion, the Labour MP for Rotherham, described the ongoing riot at the migrant hotel as "horrendous" in a social media post.

The hotel had previously been the target of an anti-immigration protest in February 2023, resulting in two arrests. The unrest has spread to other parts of the country, with police forces across the UK making over 90 arrests in connection with anti-immigration rioting.

BREAKING: Rioters have now set fire to the hotel housing illegal migrants in Rotherham https://t.co/JkpY63w33k pic.twitter.com/L3l4xQ9XP9

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) August 4, 2024

 The violence has taken a toll on public infrastructure. In Liverpool, rioters set fire to the Spellow Lane Library Hub in Walton, a recently reopened facility hailed as the 'library of the future.' Liverpool City Council expressed dismay at the damage, stating, "It's such a shame because it's such a community asset. It's really sad." The library, located in one of the UK's most deprived areas, provided education and employment resources for the local community.

Policing Minister Dame Diana Johnson condemned the violence, telling Times Radio, "People need to be aware [that] if they were looting, there will be a knock on their door, they will be brought before the police and the court, and there will be consequences."

However, Dame Johnson dismissed calls to bring in the army, stating, "There is no need to bring in the Army, and there has been no discussion about that. The police have made it very clear that they have all the resources they need at the moment... they have the powers that they need."

As authorities work to contain the unrest, concerns have been raised about the impact on day-to-day policing. Tiffany Lynch from the Police Federation of England and Wales told BBC Breakfast, "We're seeing officers that are being pulled from day-to-day policing to go out there and essentially protect our communities."

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A recent statement by the right-wing, populist Alliance for the Union of Romanians party that Romania's school system should cut back on Holocaust education and focus on "Romanian national values" has caused an uproar in the eastern European country.

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The party published a declaration calling on the government to focus on "meaningful subjects" such as "hard sciences, Romanian language and literature, and the history of the Romanian nation" and criticizing the school system for teaching what it deemed "minor matters": the Holocaust and sex education.

"The government is trying to undermine the quality of education in Romania and raise a weak generation that does not know its values," the party's message stated.

Regarding the statements minimizing the tragedy of the Holocaust:
I firmly condemn the insulting attitude and statements made by some political leaders in #Romania who have found it right to qualify the genocide of the #Holocaust as a "minor topic" for the educational system. 1/6 pic.twitter.com/gXPgeTC10E

— David Saranga (@DavidSaranga) January 4, 2022

Israeli Ambassador to Romania David Saranga responded to the party's message on Twitter, saying that it fell under the criteria of antisemitism and asking the party for a retraction.

Co-president of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians Claudiu Târziu tweeted a response to Saranga's objections: "We're Christians, so we can't be antisemitic."

Târziu acknowledged the "horrors perpetrated by the Nazis," but did not mention that Romania's fascist regime had cooperated with the Nazis. Anywhere from 280,000-380,000 Romania Jews were murdered during the Holocaust.

The Romanian government official in charge of combating antisemitism, Alexandru Muraru, said that the party's message was "unacceptable" and hinted that the party should be disqualified from running in future elections.

"The party is a threat to the constitutional order in the country," Muraru said.

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A far-right Italian politician, notorious for his anti-vax sentiments, has sparked outrage after referring to lifetime senator and Holocaust survivor Lilliana Segre by the number the Nazis inked on her arm at Auschwitz concentration camp.

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"All that was missing [in the vaccine debate] was her... 75190," Fabio Meroni, a lawmaker for the right-wing Lega Nord party from northern Lombardy, said on his Facebook page.

The post was finally removed from the site after other politicians from centre-left party Partito Democratico demanded an urgent apology to the nonagenarian who was taken and transported to Nazi death camp Auschwitz from Milan at the age of 13.

"The vulgar considerations of those who like councilor Fabio Meroni equate vaccinations with Nazi fascism offend all people with historical awareness and a sense of humanity," they said in their statement.

Meroni first appeared unfazed by the backlash and continued to express dissatisfaction with Segre's claim that vaccines were "the only way out of the pandemic," adding that "she is not a doctor" and that he referred to her by "that number instead of her name to avoid getting banned from Facebook."

As the scandal escalated, however, Meroni then offered a formal apology to Segre, stating that "in this climate of hatred, unfortunately, I too got involved and I tried to express my thoughts in a totally wrong way."

Walker Meghnagi, president of Milan's Jewish community, called his attack "intolerable" for a public figure to use such "vile" terms "for those who have suffered the horror of the racial laws on their own skin."

Meghnagi was not the only one, however, as the most severe rebuke of Meroni's comments came from Roberto Cenati, president of the Milan branch of ANPI, the National Association of Italian Partisans.

"Meroni used the same language with which the Nazis negated the personality of those who ended up in the Auschwitz extermination camp for the sole fault of being born," Cenati said.

This is not the first time antisemitic attacks towards Lilliana Segre have made the news, as she was placed under police protection last year after receiving a flood of abuse, including death threats, as a consequence of her call to a parliamentary committee to study and battle all forms of antisemitism, racism, incitement to hatred, and ethnically and religiously motivated violence.

Segre was appointed a senator for life in 2018 by President Sergio Mattarella, honoring her years of speaking out and spreading the truth regarding the Holocaust's atrocities.

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Romanian police were investigating on Sunday death threats made against award-winning film and theater star Maia Morgenstern and her children at the start of Passover celebrations.

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Morgenstern, who played the figure of Mary in Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" and runs the Jewish State Theater in Bucharest, published an email she received in which the author threatens to violently kill Morgenstern and her children, as well as set fire to the Jewish theater and its staff.

The email was signed "on behalf of the far right Alliance for Uniting Romanians (AUR)," although its leader George Simion condemned the threat, saying it was not issued by the party, and urged authorities to quickly find and punish its author.

Police said they were tracking the IP address of the email sender.

The ultra-nationalist party AUR was formed a year ago and surprised in a December general election to become the fourth-largest party in parliament.

Unlike some of its central and European peers, Romania did not have a mainstream party supporting far-right ideas until December's parliamentary election, although these had surfaced in well-established parties too.

Romania was an ally of Nazi Germany until August 1944, when it changed sides, and hundreds of thousands of Romanian and Ukrainian Jews and Roma were killed in areas it controlled.

The European Union state has only in recent years begun to come to terms with its role in the Holocaust, admitting for the first time in 2003 that it took part. Sensitivity about the Holocaust and knowledge of it remain patchy.

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A month ahead of the March 23 Knesset election, Israel Hayom joined leader of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party Itamar Ben-Gvir for a day of campaigning.

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"If only 20% of the people we met today who said they would vote for me, do, we're in good shape," he says when the day is over. 

"That 20%, I think, will join the Religious Zionist party and give us seven seats," he says. 

It is impossible to ignore the enthusiasm of the crowds that met Ben-Gvir on a tour of cities in Israel's south. But even if everyone who likes him wants to vote for the list he has joined, it's not certain they will know to pick the ballot labeled "Religious Zionist." Ben-Gvir, who was met with excited shouts on visits to Dimona, Netivot, and Beersheba, is admired there not because he is a religious Zionist. It's doubtful he is seen here as belonging to religious Zionism, or whether the people realize that there is now a list that bears that name, as they shout "Otzma Yehudit!" (Jewish Power). 

"In these areas, religious Zionist is seen as something for certain sectors. I connect with them as people, and they connect to me as someone who understands the specific troubles they are confronting," he says. 

An hour earlier, in the Beersheba market, Ben-Gvir had his picture taken with an elderly vegetable seller who, like many others, promised to vote for him. When Ben-Gvir moved away, I asked the vegetable man if he really meant it. 

"Yes, I'll vote for him, because he understands our problems here in Beersheba, and he'll take care of them." 

Q: What unique problems do you have here? 

"There is a lot of assimilation. They [referring to Bedouin] want to go out with our girls. Their crazy behavior on the roads. And the thefts."

Q: And why is Ben-Gvir the one who will take care of it? 

"Because he is the only one who understands that it's terrible." 

Q: And his public image doesn't put you off? 

"Look, Ben-Gvir – he has the problem of extremism. He's very extreme. And the Palestinians are a lot better than the Bedouin. Here in the shuk [market], I'm friends with all the Palestinians. But he doesn't talk about the Palestinians any more. He knows that the Bedouin are a much bigger problem." 

Q: And you believe him? 

"I'm afraid he won't make it past the minimum threshold. The polls in the news don't always tell the truth. 

Q: Who will you vote for? 

"For Ben-Gvir. He'll help us with the Bedouin. He's the only one who understands their language." 

Ben-Gvir, 44, was born in Mevasseret Zion, outside Jerusalem, to a Kurdish Jewish mother and an Iraqi father. He has one older brother, who has volunteered to be his personal driver during the campaign. He graduated from the secular Ort high school in Jerusalem, and only found religion at age 17. The IDF didn't draft him because he was already a leader of the Kahane youth movement. 

"My mother took it hard. After she died, my wife found letters she had sent to then-Chief of Staff Ehud Barak. She told him that he, when she was a member of the IZL, had been arrested by the British for hanging posters – so why wouldn't the Jewish state draft her son?" he recalls. 

Ben-Gvir lives in Givat Ha'avot neighborhood on the edge of Kiryat Arba, but his campaign office is in central Jerusalem and he claims that half of his prospective voters are secular, and many live inside the Green Line. 

The day begins with a meeting with campaign volunteers in Dimona. From there, we went on to Netivot for a meeting with business owners, a quick falafel for campaign workers, and then a parade – with flags – through the city, a kind of celebration of democracy. Women in Volvos and bus drivers honk and blow kisses when they see him. Young people stop for selfies; Haredim extend elbows for a "corona shake." 

Ben-Gvir doesn't miss anyone. "I need you," he tells everyone repeatedly, and they smile and promise to be there for him. Given that in the last election, his party won nearly 19,000 votes, he has something to prove from the No. 3 slot on the united Religious Zionist Party list. 

'This time, the real thing is going to happen' 

The only opposition to Ben-Gvir comes after an hour of marching. Two men playing backgammon on the sidewalk scold him about an incident that happened shortly before the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated: "You tore the emblem off Rabin's car" He walks up to them, shakes their hands, explains that he wasn't the one who did it and that it's important to get the facts right. 

Q: People hold a grudge against you over the Rabin assassination. How did you avoid prison? 

"Because I didn't tear the emblem off of Rabin's car. I said so in TV studios at the time. The one who pulled it off and admitted it to the police was some young guy who the media went easy on because his father was a supporter of Shimon Peres. Today, he's one of our activists, and so is his father." 

Q: Are they sorry for what they did?

"Absolutely, yes. I just brought it to the media and said that if people could get to it, they could get to Rabin. By the way, what I originally said was that if I could get to Rabin, I'd yell at him. That's all. But they cut it off in editing. And 25 years have passed. I'm not there. They're still trying to delegitimize me." 

Q: Possibly, but that's what's building you up. 

"There's no doubt that the attacks from the Left don't hurt my base. From the start of the campaign, Yair Lapid has tweeted, if I'm not mistaken, more than 40 tweets about me. What I like best are the columns in Haaretz because they're hypocrisy at its best – the knights of free speech being outraged about 'How can you give him a platform?' By the way, 15 years ago, it would have worked. I used to be an outcast." 

Q: You are consistently in the headlines. 

"It wasn't always easy. I'll give you an example: In 2008 I started a campaign that said that if we free terrorists, Marwan Barghouti for example, then [Rabin assassin] Yigal Amir should be freed. I'm not in favor of releasing him, but I wanted people to be shocked at the possibility of freeing murderers. No one covered that campaign. I went to the Army Radio correspondent, and he told me candidly: I was ordered not to give you a platform.

"Then my young wife called what was then the program with the biggest audience. She told the host: 'I'm a student at the University of Haifa and you won't believe what I'm seeing here! Posters of a far-right activist!' They put her on the air, and she read out the poster that had supposedly been put up. I called the program to respond, and I said, 'There are no limits to your audacity – you put the left-winger on the air, and not me?' They said, 'There's no time, but we'll let you respond on the evening show.'" 

Q: And that how you became popular? Because of the media's loathing? The Left is against you because you're a follower of Meir Kahane and the Right is against you because you lose votes for it. 

"Everyone knows that I speak what is in my heart. I say what I think. A lot of the people of Israel connect to it. It's not Kiryat Arba and Yitzhar, it's Netivot and Ofakim and Beit Shean. I walk around Tel Aviv, not only in the south, and people admire and love me. There are also people who say, 'We don't agree with you, but we admire your honesty." 

Ben-Gvir used to have a picture of Baruch Goldstein, a Kahane follower responsible for a massacre that killed 29 Muslim worshippers and wounded 125 at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron in 1994, on his wall. 

Q: You took the picture down. Was that a violation of your principles? 

"Ultimately, I didn't want my children to get the message that I was happy about the deaths of Arabs." 

Q: What has changed? You were on the radical fringes of society. 

"The profession. Studying law. I think that practicing law changed a few things in my life. I didn't turn into a Meretz member, but it changes you. When you're inside the system and learn the laws, it's something different." 

Ben-Gvir says he might not have been admitted to the bar if it hadn't been for the late MK Dudu Rotem of YIsrael Beytenu, who was head of the Knesset Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee when the Israel Bar Association wanted to prevent Ben-Gvir from taking the bar exam. 

"I built a practice with my own two hands. I make more than MKs. People are willing to pay a lot, thank God. I told Ayala, my wife, know that we can make a few million in 10 or 15 years, but there's the Knesset. She said, 'Your dream and mine is for you to be in the Knesset to help the Jewish people.'" 

Q: All these years, you've spoken out against the Likud. Where does the sudden support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu come from? 

"To form a right-wing government. If I spoke against Bibi, they'd slander me less." 

Q: But no one in the Likud wants anything to do with you.

"Yes, they're the same people who want me to be the 61st vote that will let them stay on as ministers. But in the current political constellation, I think that if Netanyahu could, he would join Lapid or Gantz or whoever … in 2013, he opted for Lapid, and in 2015 he took Moshe Kahlon and the Likud was saying 'There's no way the justice system can be changed,' and a year ago they said, 'No change is possible because we have Gantz." But now I can be the missing piece of the pie. And maybe then there will be a true right-wing government here."  

Q: As a lawyer, what is your opinion of the Netanyahu cases? 

"Terrible, in my opinion. I feel uncomfortable about the trial and hope that his claims about selective enforcement are accepted. This is a blatant case of that. For years, I've been handling cases like these, but the Likud hasn't done anything about it … Sadly, Netanyahu is being persecuted and is paying the price for his failing to handle incorrect conduct by the legal system." 

Q: So you don't trust Netanyahu. 

"I trust Netanyahu only when I'm watching over him. He makes a lot of declarations that if he were to implement them, reality would be different." 

Q: And thus far he hasn't fulfilled his promises? 

"He has achievements. But when there are people in the south who can't open businesses because of a protection racket, women in south Tel Aviv who don't step outside into the jungle because they're afraid, in the north there's terrorism, and the attorney general is stronger than ever – things need to change." 

Q: What should be changed? 

"There need to be reforms to the legal system. The Supreme Court changes the laws passed by the legislature because they are the true sovereign. What's most important is to change the make-up of the Judges Selection Committee. I completely understand the need for judges with a variety of opinions, and a lot of times I'm happy to appear before the left-wing ones about things that are not ideological, because they accept my clients' cases and everything is great. But most of the Supreme Court justices are on the other side." 

Q: You waited until the last minute to file a petition to disqualify Labor candidate Ibtisam Mara'ana from the party list. Was that a gimmick? 

"Heaven forbid, I'm not comparing, but they disqualified Dr. Michael Ben Ari, Bentzi Gopstein, Baruch Marzel, and her, they leave in? If someone from Otzma Yehudit would have said what Ibtisam said about Zichron Yaakov, but the opposite – that Umm al-Fahm should be destroyed, for example – no judge would have allowed him to stay a candidate for the Knesset, and what's more, a police officer would show up immediately to arrest him." 

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Q: What do you think about Netanyahu taking steps toward the Arabs? 

"I distinguish between the public and the leaders. If he manages to get votes in Nazareth, for example, great. But I won't cooperate with [Ra'am leader] Mansour Abbas. Before the meeting of the committee to disqualify candidates we collected material [on him] and his comments are no gentler than Heba Yazbek or Ahmad Tibi's. One time, he said 'terrorists,' then rushed to apologize and explain that he didn't accept the Jewish terminology and that people who murder Jewish babies were actually freedom fighters. There are things you don't do to win seats." 

Q: Will your bloc with Bezalel Smotrich fall apart after the election? 

"It's a technical bloc. We have our disagreements and our pitfalls. Each of us brings some added value. Bezalel brings the religious Zionists – the mainstream, and I think that religious Zionism isn't just the kippa-wearers or the settlers, but anyone who identified with the values of the Land of the people and the Torah. It's also the people who maintain tradition, say Kiddush Friday night and watch soccer on Saturday morning. Religious Zionism is broader. If we can make connections in every direction, we'll profit hugely." 

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The Jewish owner of the Morgen Wird Besser pub in Berlin's Lichtenberg neighborhood said that for some years, he has been the target of harassment and threats by anti-Semitic neighbors and neo-Nazis. German media reported that local police had confirmed that they were investigating the arson as a possible anti-Semitic hate crime.

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On Wednesday, Jews and Israelis in Berlin visited the pub in a show of support for the owner and as a protest against growing anti-Semitism in the country.

Rabbi of Dresden Akiva Weingarten discussed the incident, saying, "When the news arrived about a fire in a Berlin bar that was owned by Jews – what appears to be a hate crime and an act by members of the far Right – I couldn't not connect it to our blood-soaked history here.

"Jewish shops in Germany being burned awakens horrible memories of our past here in the heart of every Jew," Weingarten said, adding that he believed that the German authorities would find the perpetrators and try them in court.

"Especially now, when the trial of the killer from Halle is under way, we expect the words 'Never Again' to not remain hollow," Weingarten said.

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According to accounts in the German media, two masked men arrived at the Jewish cemetery at approximately 3 a.m. Monday morning and proceeded to knock over dozens of gravestones and deface some of them with blue paint.

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The two were arrested near the crime scene following a tip from a witness to the act of vandalism who alerted the authorities.

According to Bild, the two men, 21 and 33, both known as far-right extremists, were briefly detained and released. Law enforcement has opened an investigation into the incident.

Just a few days ago, a similar crime was reported in Slovakia, where some 20 gravestones were vandalized in the country's north.

This article was originally published by i24NEWS.

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A 27-year-old German man previously unknown to police confessed to carrying out the attack in the eastern city of Halle in which two people were killed Wednesday.

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The suspected gunman, identified as Stephan Balliet, allegedly built the firearms he used with the help of online instructions, posted an anti-Semitic screed before the attack and later broadcast the shooting live on a popular gaming site.

In response to the attack and previous incidents, German officials have called for more officers to be devoted to tackling far-right extremism and a greater focus on online platforms they say are increasingly being used as a means of spreading far-right radicalism and linking up with like-minded people in a way already seen with Islamist extremism.

Thomas Haldenwang, who heads the BfV domestic intelligence agency, said the attack in Halle and similar shootings in Texas, New Zealand, and Norway showed the need for security services to get better tools to tackle online extremism. In particular, he called for authorities to be given permission to install monitoring software on suspect's devices so as to read their encrypted communication.

Holger Münch, head of the Federal Criminal Police Office, said online threats and acts of violence are creating a "climate of fear" in Germany that is deterring people from volunteering for public office.

"Right-wing crimes threaten our democracy," Münch said. "The situation is serious."

The country is still reeling from the killing of Walter Lübcke, a regional politician from Chancellor Angela Merkel's party, who was shot dead at his home in June. Lübcke had vocally supported Merkel's welcoming stance toward refugees in 2015 and the suspect in his killing is a far-right extremist with a string of convictions for violent anti-migrant crimes.

Münch said his agency has identified 43 far-right extremists who are considered to constitute a serious threat, an increase of about a third since the start of the year. Overall, authorities say there are some 12,700 far-right extremists in Germany "prepared to use violence."

He called for a bundle of measures including greater scrutiny of online hate postings, extending the period of time that security services can store data on possible extremists and for those who create and distribute lists of political enemies to be prosecuted.

He also proposed that an existing law requiring platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to swiftly remove illegal hate speech should be expanded to force them to report such content to police.

Münch suggested his office could become a central point of contact dealing with online hate crimes in the same way it already does for child pornography.

Further proposals include creating a special unit to investigate possible extremists in the police and other government departments and a crackdown on known far-right groups.

Security officials are particularly concerned that the 'new Right' – groups that include factions within the Alternative for Germany party which entered the federal parliament two years ago – are providing the intellectual fodder for extremists.

Authorities are still investigating whether the suspect in the Halle shooting had ties to any known groups or individuals. At least five people watched the attack live as it happened, suggesting they may have known it was going to take place.

The suspect failed to force his way into the synagogue as scores of people inside were observing Judaism's holiest day, Yom Kippur. He then shot and killed a 40-year-old German woman in the street outside and a 20-year-old man at a nearby kebab shop before fleeing. He was later arrested in Zeitz, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of Halle.

The suspect has admitted during questioning that he carried out the shooting and had anti-Semitic and right-wing extremist motives.

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The attack, in which two people were killed outside the synagogue and in a kebab shop, stoked renewed concern about rising far-right extremism and questions about the police response.

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The head of Germany's Jewish community, Josef Schuster, called the absence of police guards outside the synagogue on Yom Kippur "scandalous" as members of the congregation described waiting behind locked doors for the police to arrive, which took more than 10 minutes.

The assailant – a German citizen identified by prosecutors as Stephan B., firing what appeared to be homemade weapons – tried and failed to force his way into the synagogue as around 80 people were inside, then shot and killed a woman in the street outside and a man at a nearby kebab shop.

The attack, with the gunman ranting about Jews and denying the Holocaust in English, was livestreamed on Twitch, a popular gaming site.

The head of the city's Jewish community, Max Privorozki, was among those inside who watched the man trying to break in on monitors linked to a surveillance camera. "We saw everything, also how he shot and how he killed someone," he said.

"I thought this door wouldn't hold," Privorozki said outside the damaged door.

"That was a shock for us, that was Yom Kippur, all phones were switched off, we had to understand what was going on first – then switch on my phone and then call the police," he said. "It was really panic but I have to say after that, when the police came, we continued with the worship service, that lasted another three hours, the synagogue worship service."

The worshippers were brought out on buses several hours later. A video posted by a reporter for Channel 11 News showed people on a bus dancing, embracing and singing.

A worshipper who was at the synagogue, identified only as Christina, told Israel Radio that "it's not easy being openly Jewish in Germany," but "the main message is we can't give up. We won't give up on Jewish existence in Germany."

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier laid flowers outside the synagogue and met with community representatives, the first of several officials who were due to visit.

Ahead of the visit, Schuster was sharply critical Wednesday night of the lack of a police presence outside. "I am convinced that if there had been police protection there, in all probability the assailant would not have been able to attack a second site," he said.

Christoph Bernstiel, a local councilor who also represents Halle in the national parliament, told n-tv television that there will be a careful examination of how long the response took, "but at this point, it would be too early to draw premature conclusions."

Synagogues are often protected by police in Germany and have been for many years amid concerns over far-right and Islamic extremism. There has been rising concern lately about both anti-Semitism and right-wing extremism.

Germany's domestic intelligence agency has said that the number of anti-Semitic acts of violence rose to 48 last year from 21 the previous year. It also said that the number of far-right extremists rose by 100 to 24,100 people last year, with more than half of them considered potentially violent.

In June, Walter Lübcke, a regional politician from Chancellor Angela Merkel's party, was fatally shot at his home. Lübcke was known for supporting the welcoming refugee policy that Merkel adopted during an influx of migrants in 2015. The suspect is a far-right extremist with a string of convictions for violent anti-migrant crimes.

Joachim Herrmann, Bavaria's state interior minister, accused members of the nationalist, anti-migrant Alternative for Germany party of helping stir up anti-Semitism, an accusation the party rejected. Some figures in the party, which entered the national parliament in 2017, have made comments appearing to downplay the Nazi past.

The video streamed on Twitch, which apparently was filmed with a head-mounted camera, showed the perpetrator driving up to the synagogue in a car packed with ammunition and what appeared to be homemade explosives.

He tried two doors and placed a device at the bottom of a gate, then fired at a woman trying to walk past his parked car. The assailant then fired rounds into the synagogue's door, which didn't open. He drove a short distance to park opposite the kebab shop. He fired at what appeared to be an employee, while customers scrambled away.

What appeared to be a manifesto also appeared online, according to Rita Katz, the head of the SITE Intelligence Group.

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