Religious hate crimes in England and Wales have soared by 25% to record levels, coinciding with the Israel-Hamas conflict, government statistics show.
The increase, from 8,370 to 10,484 offences reported to police forces in the year to March, was driven by a rise in offences against Jewish people and to a lesser extent Muslims, the Home Office said. The overall number of hate crimes dropped.
According to the statistical bulletin, the total of 10,484 anti-religious offences was the highest annual tally of these offences since hate crime records began in the year ending March 2012.
The report said: “The increase in offences was driven by a sharp rise in religious hate crimes targeted at Jewish people since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas conflict. Since the spike, the number of offences has declined but to a level higher than seen before the conflict.
“Annually, there were 3,282 religious hate crimes targeted at Jewish people in the year ending March 2024, more than double the number recorded the previous year. These offences accounted for a third (33%) of all religious hate crimes in the last year. By comparison, the proportion in the previous year was 20%.”
It said there had also been an increase in religious hate crimes against Muslims, up 13% to 3,866 reported offences. Almost two in five religious hate crimes (38%) were targeted against Muslims, the report said.
There were 702 reported hate crimes against Christians, 193 against Hindus and 216 against Sikhs – 7%, 2% and 2% as a proportion of religious hate crimes over the year.
Overall there were 140,561 reported hate crimes, a decrease of 5% from the previous year, the second consecutive annual fall. Reported hate incidents on the grounds of race, sexual orientation, disability and transgender fell.
From January to June 2024, the Community Security Trust (CST), a charity, recorded 1,978 reports of anti-Jewish hate incidents, up from 964 in the first half of 2023.
Of these, 1,037 were in Greater London, including 411 in Barnet, the local authority area that is home to the biggest Jewish community in the UK. The region with the next highest number of recorded antisemitic incidents was Greater Manchester with 268, followed by West Yorkshire with 115.
Tell Mama UK, an monitoring group, said last week it recorded 4,971 incidents of anti-Muslim hate between 7 October 2023 and 30 September 2024, the highest annual total in the past 14 years.
It has been just over a year since Hamas and allied groups launched their unprecedented attack on southern Israel. Approximately 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage.
After the attacks, Israel declared war in Gaza and launched a military campaign that has killed more than 41,000 people, mainly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
