(Picture: 2025 Getty Images)
The King is to become a patron of a security trust protecting Jewish people as the hunt for three masked men who blew up four ambulances intensifies.
Counter terror detectives are leading the investigation after the vehicles from the volunteer Hatzola ambulance service were set alight in Golders Green, north London in the early hours of Monday morning.
Their oxygen tanks exploded, leaving just the burned-out shell of the vehicles, which cost more than £1million to keep on the road. A fundraiser has raised nearly £2million in the wake of the attack.
Detectives are investigating potential links with a terror group backed by the Iranian regime, although the hate crime has not been confirmed as terrorism.
Sources have told Metro that a man was asking locals questions about the ambulance service just hours before the attack.
That has been reported to police and is under investigation.
The arson attack has struck fear into the hearts of the tight-knit Jewish community, but the announcement that the King would become patron of the Community Safety Trust (CST) at a dinner last night has been described as ‘enormous and fantastic’.
(Picture: John Dunne)
Damon Hoff, the president of the Machzike Hadath Synagogue where the ambulance service is based, told Metro: ‘This is enormous news, absolutely fantastic.
‘To have the King standing shoulder to shoulder with us is really something.
‘We say prayers for the monarch and go to see him when he appears in public. This is such a big deal for us, especially at this difficult time.’
The ambulances were parked on a forecourt outside the synagogue whose stained glass windows were shattered in the blast, with some damage to the roof and singed carpets inside.
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Mr Hoff added: ‘There is so much wood inside the synagogue it could have gone up like a tinderbox.
‘It’s a miracle that more damage was not done. We managed to hold prayers this morning and we are back up and running.’
Peter Williams, a Hatzola ambulance driver for more than 20 years, told Metro: ‘What a fantastic, positive thing it is for the King to become patron of the CST.
‘Timing is everything and after what happened to our ambulances, this is welcome news.
‘I’m devastated about what happened to our ambulances. We help the whole community not just Jewish people. I’m dumbfounded that anyone could attack them. I hope the police find these people quickly.’
The CST said the King had accepted the invitation, ‘highlighting His Majesty’s long-standing support for the UK’s Jewish community and the wider fight against antisemitism’.
The CST, which has more than 2,000 volunteers, provides security advice and equipment to Jewish schools, organisations and synagogues.
Conservative peer Lord Finkelstein announced the King’s new patronage at the start of the charity’s annual fundraising dinner on Monday evening.
It is understood that the patronage was not in direct response to theGolders Green attack.
The dinner was attended by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood and Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley.
The King has long supported the Jewish community and is a patron of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.
He travelled to Poland last year to attend moving events marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the former Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz.
As the Prince of Wales, he commissioned seven portraits of some of the nation’s last remaining Holocaust survivors to serve as a ‘powerful testament’ of their experiences.
The announcement of the King’s patronage comes as detectives trawl through CCTV to plot the route of a car which was filmed near the ambulances seconds after they were set alight.
It left the scene and headed from Highfield Road towards Golders Green Road.
Meanwhile, the latest figures on hate crime recorded by police in England and Wales showed Jewish people had the highest rate of religious hate crimes targeted towards them.
In the year to March 2025, there were 106 religious hate crimes per 10,000 population targeted at Jewish people, the Home Office said in figures published in October.
Separate figures covering the 12 months of 2025, published earlier this year by the CST, which monitors antisemitism in the UK, concluded the second-highest annual total recorded for anti-Jewish hate incidents, at 3,700 – up 4% on the 3,556 incidents recorded in 2024.
Police have announced that extra patrols, some armed, will be deployed to protect and give reassurance to the Jewish community.