Israel’s embassy in Stockholm was the victim of an attempted attack on Wednesday, after a sniper unit destroyed a device that police said could have been an “explosive,” the Israeli ambassador said, AFP reported.

Today, we became the victims of an attempted attack on the Israeli embassy in Stockholm and its staff,” Israel’s ambassador to Sweden, Ziv Nevo Kuhlman, wrote on X. “We will not be intimidated. “Terror will not frighten us,” he added.

For its part, the Stockholm police clarified that they were alerted “at 13.08 (12.08 GMT) by the embassy, ​​which found an object it considers dangerous.”

The area around the facility was cordoned off and “the device was destroyed by the national genie team and we believe it has been activated,” police officer Daniel Wikdal told AFP.

Swedish tabloids Expressen and Aftonbladet reported it was a hand grenade, citing unidentified sources, while Aftonbladet said it was thrown over the fence surrounding the mission and landed on the ground near the building.

Stockholm police said that forensic police went to the scene to look for possible clues and obtain surveillance images.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson called the situation “very serious”

“The attempted attack on the embassy is an attack on both those who work there and on Sweden,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

In late October, the Swedish government pledged 10 million kroner ($1 million) to increase security at Jewish institutions and congregations following a surge in anti-Semitism following the war between Israel and Hamas.

In the two months since the start of the war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement, 120 complaints of incitement to anti-Semitic hatred have been registered in Sweden, according to police data obtained by AFP.

In early December, Kristersson and members of his government took part in a march against anti-Semitism in central Stockholm. The leader said he was “very concerned that anti-Semitism is spreading in Sweden and other European countries”.

On October 7, Hamas commandos in Gaza launched an unprecedented attack on Israeli territory, killing 1,140 people, most of them civilians, AFP reported, based on official Israeli figures.

In response, Israel vowed to “destroy” Hamas and launched a massive military operation, besieging Gaza and killing 26,900 people, the vast majority of whom were civilians, women, children and teenagers, according to the Palestinian Authority’s Health Ministry.