The Media Line: Easter and Passover Celebrated as Terror Attacks Loom Large 

Easter and Passover Celebrated as Terror Attacks Loom Large 

Jewish, Israeli, and Western targets are facing a growing mix of sabotage, intimidation, and opportunistic attacks as the conflict spills into Europe 

By Giorgia Valente / The Media Line 

As explosions and arson attacks rattle synagogues and Jewish organizations from Liège to London and shadowy groups claim responsibility online, Europe’s streets have become an unwitting front in the escalating US-Israel-Iran war. What began in late February as a regional clash is now spawning a toxic brew of jihadist inspiration, Iranian proxy sabotage, and antisemitic violence—threats that exploit holidays like Passover and Easter for maximum terror. 

Israelis remember or have heard about the notorious terror attack during which a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated explosives at the Park Hotel in Netanya during a Passover seder on March 27, 2002, killing 30 people and injuring dozens. The timing of the attack, targeting families gathered for one of Judaism’s most significant holiday celebrations, has left a lasting sense of vulnerability that continues to shadow Passover observances more than two decades later. 

The calendar adds another layer of sensitivity. This year, Passover began at sundown on April 1 and runs through April 9, while Easter Sunday falls on April 5, following Good Friday on April 3. Those dates matter not because holidays mechanically trigger attacks, but because they create crowded, symbolic, and highly visible moments that can magnify the psychological effect of even relatively small-scale violence. 

Daniele Garofalo, a counterterrorism and extremist groups expert, said the concern around holiday periods is longstanding, but the current war has changed the operational backdrop.  

“The possibility of attacks against American, Israeli, and Jewish targets during festive periods is a variable that security services constantly monitor, regardless of specific crises. In the current context, any increase in risk would not automatically depend on a potential US ground maneuver, but rather on three concrete operational factors,” he told The Media Line. 

He said those factors are political intent, capability, and opportunity. 

“First, there is the political and strategic willingness of Iran to activate instruments of indirect projection abroad. Tehran tends to operate through proxies and clandestine networks, avoiding direct attribution,” he noted. 

“Second, there is the operational capability of affiliated or aligned actors, such as Hezbollah, which has historically demonstrated external planning capacity, particularly in contexts with lower protection or less robust security infrastructures,” he continued. 

He added that the third factor is the level of opportunity—meaning accessible targets, public events, and symbolic time windows such as holidays, which increase visibility and psychological impact. 

Garofalo cautioned against overstating the role of Hezbollah as a direct operational threat in Italy, while noting that the broader Iranian network still presents a risk. 

“Iranian networks operate transnationally, so if assets are activated in countries like Germany, France, or the Balkans, Italy automatically falls within the operational perimeter,” he said. 

Garofalo explained that Hezbollah’s presence in Europe is historically more logistical and financial than operational, adding that in Italy it remains relatively low-profile, linked mainly to fundraising, logistical support, and diaspora networks. “The real risk is indirect escalation, through Iran, proxies, and local actors rather than classic Hezbollah structures,” he commented. 

What has emerged over the past two weeks in Europe fits that pattern more closely than a classic mass-casualty terrorism model. On March 9, a synagogue in Liège was damaged in an explosion that Belgian authorities classified as an antisemitic act. On March 13, an arson attack struck a synagogue in Rotterdam; Dutch authorities later arrested multiple suspects, and prosecutors said the attack carried terrorist intent.  

On March 14, an explosion damaged a Jewish school in Amsterdam, an act which the city’s mayor described as deliberate. Belgium also investigated an arson attack in Antwerp, while in London, four ambulances belonging to Hatzola Northwest—a Jewish volunteer ambulance service—were set on fire in Golders Green in an attack police are treating as an antisemitic hate crime. 

The response has already shifted from concern to visible security hardening. Belgium has deployed soldiers to reinforce protection for Jewish institutions in Brussels, Antwerp, and Liège. In Britain, police and community security networks increased patrols before Passover and deployed additional visible protection around Jewish sites. Italy’s annual intelligence reporting also warned that the escalation linked to the Iran conflict is raising the terrorist risk, particularly for Israeli, Jewish, and American interests. 

Garofalo argued that the real danger lies less in a spectacular, centrally directed operation than in a hybrid and indirect model. 

“The real risk, as often happens, is more plausibly linked to opportunistic or low-complexity actions, the activation of sleeper cells already present, and the possible mobilization of radicalized individuals who are inspired rather than directly directed,” he noted. 

In his view, the current threat should not be read entirely through the lens of Islamic State (ISIS)-style attacks. 

“This is a hybrid, state-linked, and indirect threat,” he said, explaining that in recent months, European security services have raised alert levels for activities attributable to Iran, often through proxies or indirect networks. “European intelligence explicitly speaks of an evolution toward hybrid threats, meaning a combination of terrorism, criminality, and clandestine state operations,” he added. 

One reason this assessment has gained traction is the sudden appearance of Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia, a previously unknown group that has claimed responsibility online for several of the attacks on Jewish and Israeli-linked sites in Europe. The group had no detectable public footprint before March this year, and analysts have noted that its messaging first circulated through pro-Iran channels and networks linked to Hezbollah, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and Iraqi Shiite armed groups rather than through a mature, standalone propaganda apparatus. 

Sharon Adarlo, conflict analyst, editor, and operations and research director at Militant Wire, said the group should be understood in the context of deniable hybrid tactics rather than as a conventional armed group. 

She affirmed that countries like Iran—and even before that, Russia—have pioneered hybrid tactics that are not quite kinetic warfare, but definitely sabotage. In recent years, they have recruited what she called ‘disposable agents’ or volunteers, paid them a fee, often in cryptocurrency, and directed them to carry out sabotage operations—bombings, arson, spying—different kinds of low-level but disruptive attacks. “What we’re seeing now is that Iran appears to have adopted similar tactics,” Adarlo told The Media Line. 

The operational design appears built to obscure who is really directing the violence. 

“I think what they’ve done is try to put several steps between the disposable agents who carry out the attacks and whoever is actually directing them. That creates confusion, but it also gives Iran plausible deniability. It looks like it could be Iran, it could not be Iran, but at the same time it very much seems like it is,” she observed. 

Attribution for these crimes is still incomplete. British, Belgian, and Dutch authorities are investigating the attacks and the authenticity of the group’s claims, but no European government has publicly proven direct Iranian command-and-control over the incidents. That gap between suspicion and proof is, itself, part of the logic of hybrid warfare: enough violence to intimidate, enough ambiguity to complicate response. 

According to Adarlo, several indicators point toward an Iran-linked ecosystem. 

“The reason why we think it’s Iran-linked—even though there are some weird or atypical signatures—is because the group models itself after Iran’s Axis of Resistance. You see it in their logo, in their use of Quranic references, and in their statements where they invoke early Islamic battles like the conquest of Mecca,” she said. 

Adarlo added that what really stood out is that the content first appeared on pro-Iran channels on Telegram, Twitter, and other platforms, and was quickly amplified by pro-Iranian networks and so-called news organizations that openly approved of the attacks. She noted that some of the channels distributing this content are also associated with Iranian-backed Iraqi militias, which suggests there may be an Iraqi connection as well. 

Adarlo rejected the idea that the phenomenon is simply fabricated by anti-Iran actors. 

“Some people online are saying this could be a false flag operation, that it might be Mossad or something like that. … I really don’t think that’s the case here. The fact that it was disseminated first in pro-Iranian channels, praised in Farsi and Arabic-speaking spaces, and only later dismissed in English-language discourse strongly suggests it’s not a false flag. I think it’s a manufactured front for an Iranian operation,” she asserted. 

The methods Adarlo describes are distinct from Sunni extremist organizations such as ISIS, but the timing of the current crisis means both threat streams are now active at once. 

Lucas Webber, senior threat intelligence analyst at Tech Against Terrorism, said ISIS propagandists have framed the war as an opening to encourage attacks in the West precisely because the conflict creates emotional volatility and the perception that security services are stretched.  

“Since the US-Israel versus Iran war began in late February, Islamic State propagandists have intensified their online messaging across social media and encrypted platforms, explicitly telling supporters not to rally behind Iran or US-backed governments but instead to carry out attacks against ‘near’ and ‘far’ enemies wherever they are,” he told The Media Line. 

“The narrative frames the state-on-state conflict as a moment of strategic distraction, arguing that Western security services are focused on geopolitical escalation and therefore less able to monitor individuals moving from online radicalization to real-world action,” he added. 

He said the online messaging is deliberately geared toward opportunistic violence. 

The propaganda emphasizes wartime grievances, graphic imagery, and calls for revenge, he noted, while presenting mass protests and heightened political tensions as ideal conditions for supporters or small cells to mobilize. “The goal is not necessarily large, coordinated operations but rather opportunistic attacks by self-radicalized individuals who interpret the chaos as permission and encouragement to act,” he added. 

Webber also pointed to a specific ISIS-linked case in New York as an illustration of how online incitement tied to the war can translate into attempted violence in politically charged environments. 

He said that the attempted bombing in New York City on March 7 occurred near the mayor’s official residence during an anti-Islam protest, where a homemade explosive device was thrown toward the crowd but failed to fully detonate and caused no injuries. Federal investigators later charged two suspects with offenses including aiding ISIS and attempting to carry out an explosive attack. The suspects had pledged support to ISIS and expressed a desire to carry out something larger than the Boston Marathon bombing. 

“Officials described the plot as ISIS-inspired and said there was no evidence linking it to Iran, which shows how the broader security environment created by the war can still be exploited by other jihadist actors seeking to capitalize on tensions for their own ideological objectives,” Webber explained. 

He said the distinction between Sunni jihadi opportunism and Iran-linked hybrid intimidation is critical for understanding the evolving threat landscape. 

Webber argued that there are two distinct but overlapping dynamics: ISIS is using the war to encourage decentralized jihadi violence, and Hakarat Ashab al-Yamin is leveraging the same geopolitical tension to amplify Iran-aligned messaging and psychological warfare. “In both cases, the online ecosystem functions as the connective tissue, enabling rapid dissemination, radicalization, and operational signaling across borders,” he concluded. 

 

 

 

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