Israel Thanks France for Bust of ‘Lone Wolf’ Brussels Jewish Museum Gunman
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked French President Francois Hollande for his country’s capture of the alleged Brussels Jewish museum gunman.
In a telephone conversation on Tuesday, Netanyahu also thanked Hollande for his “strong and consistent stand against anti-Semitism,” according to the Prime Minister’s Office.
Mehdi Nemmouche was arrested at Marseille’s main train and bus station, Saint-Charles, on May 29 and is being held on suspicion of terrorist activity. He arrived in Marseille aboard a bus that left from Amsterdam via Brussels.
On Tuesday, a Paris court agreed to a French prosecutor’s request to extend Nemmouche’s detention by 24 hours, a rare measure in France that can be applied only in cases where there is an “imminent” risk of attack, France 24 reported.
Nemmouche had been stopped by customs officers performing routine checks and declined to open his bag, leading the customs officers to evacuate the bus and check the contents of every bag aboard. The weapons found in his luggage “were arms of the same type used on May 24 in Brussels,” an unnamed source told the French news agency AFP.
Four people — an Israeli couple, a French woman and a Belgian man — were killed in the attack on the Jewish Museum of Belgium in central Brussels.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Ye debuts ‘Heil Hitler’ music video that includes a sample of a Hitler speech
- 2
Opinion It looks like Israel totally underestimated Trump
- 3
Culture Is Pope Leo Jewish? Ask his distant cousins — like me
- 4
Fast Forward Student suspended for ‘F— the Jews’ video defends himself on antisemitic podcast
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion The staggering hypocrisy behind Trump’s deal to free the last living American hostage
-
Fast Forward Russell Brand defends Ye’s ‘Heil Hitler’ music video
-
Opinion Though sworn enemies, Hamas and Donald Trump seem to share a common language
-
Culture The woman who saved stolen Jewish art — and the writer who is finally telling her story
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.