BRUSSELS — The three men had a pretext ready. One of them approached David Sierzant Acitores on the metro train and asked for directions to the central station. It was a routine distraction. Seconds later, all three were on him — punching him in the face, holding him down, shouting “dirty Jew” as they tore the gold chain from around his neck. His glasses flew off and shattered. His shirt was ripped. They took the Star of David pendant. They left behind his wallet and his phone. Then they ran.

This was not a robbery. The attackers made no attempt to reach his wallet or phone — items within easy reach. What they wanted, as David himself stated publicly in the hours after the attack, was the Jewish symbol. “They just wanted the Star of David as a trophy.”

The attack took place on the evening of Friday, April 24, 2026, on a STIB/MIVB Brussels Metro train. The three assailants fled at Yser station — known in bilingual Brussels as both Yser and IJzer. As of April 26, 2026, Belgian police have filed no public update on the investigation, no suspects have been arrested, and David is relying on metro surveillance cameras to identify the men who beat him.

Facial Injuries Shared Publicly — A Deliberate Act of Witness

David’s decision to share photos of his injuries on social media was a conscious act of testimony. His cuts to the cheek and lips, his broken glasses, his torn clothing — visible proof of what he described as “unambiguous antisemitism” — were seen and shared by thousands across Jewish and Israeli news outlets, including The Times of Israel and the European Jewish Press.

He did not frame the incident merely as a crime against himself. He framed it as a statement about the safety — or lack thereof — of visibly Jewish life in Brussels. In doing so, he amplified a conversation that Belgian Jewish communities have been trying, with growing desperation, to force into public view.

Political Condemnation — Across Party Lines

Belgian lawmakers responded rapidly and forcefully, with condemnations spanning the political spectrum.

What This Attack Means — And What Europe Must Do

The Yser station attack did not happen in isolation. It happened in Brussels — the capital of the European Union, home to its Parliament, its Council, its Commission. It happened in a city where soldiers already stand guard outside synagogues. It happened to a man wearing a symbol of his faith that his father gave him three decades ago.

Jewish communities across Belgium and Europe have been raising the alarm about exactly this kind of violence — targeted, brazen, happening in daylight on public transit, fueled by hatred so certain of its impunity that the attackers shouted their motive as they struck. They took the Star of David and left everything else. A trophy, the victim said.

The response from Belgian politicians, while welcome, must be followed by action — not only in this specific investigation, but in the broader enforcement of hate crime laws, the monitoring of extremist networks, and the creation of an environment in which no Jewish person fears wearing a symbol of their identity in public. European institutions based in Brussels carry a particular moral obligation in this regard. The failure to protect Jewish residents is not only a Belgian failure. It is a European one.

David Sierzant Acitores is asking for the return of his father’s Star of David. He should not have to ask. He should never have had it taken.