German police said Friday that a man was badly wounded in a possible stabbing at central Berlin's Holocaust memorial near the US embassy.
"A man was seriously injured by an unknown person," they said on X, and "rescue workers are caring for several people on site who had to witness the events."
Police spokeswoman Valeska Jakobowski told AFP that "the unknown man attacked the other man, possibly with a sharp object," around 6:00 pm local time (1700 GMT).
According to the police, "The victim is undergoing surgery" and "the search is ongoing" for the attacker, adding, "We don't know anything about motive."
German police later said they had arrested a male suspect near the site of the attack.
"We just arrested a male suspect," said police spokesman Florian Nath. "We are now urgently investigating... if he could be the suspect who committed the crime here today around 6:00 pm."
Police armed with assault rifles were at the cordoned-off Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a somber grid of concrete steles located near the iconic Brandenburg Gate, commemorating Jewish victims of the Holocaust.
The incident came two days before national elections and after a series of deadly attacks that have shocked Germany, including car-rammings and stabbing sprees.
Germany has grown increasingly alarmed about rising anti-Jewish sentiment since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.
A record 5,164 anti-Semitic crimes were recorded in 2023, compared with 2,641 in 2022, according to figures from the federal domestic intelligence agency.
In an attack in early September, German police shot dead a young Austrian known for his ties to radical Islam as he was preparing to carry out an attack on the Israeli consulate in Munich.
With AFP
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