Police sealed off the area around the embassy and carried out searches in several Stockholm neighbourhoods after hearing gunshots in the early hours of Friday morning.

“Due to suspected shots near Israel’s embassy in Stockholm, the police are taking security measures (to protect) Israeli and Jewish property and interests across the country,” the police department announced on its website.

Israel’s ambassador to Sweden Ziv Nevo Kulman thanked the authorities on X “for their immediate reaction and investigation, and for enhancing the security measures around our embassy and around the Jewish communities”.

The gunfire comes after Sweden’s intelligence service revealed in February that an investigation into a foiled attack on the Israeli embassy in Stockholm was being probed as a potential “terrorist crime.”

Police were called to the embassy on January 31st after a “dangerous object” was discovered on its grounds, which the national bomb squad destroyed after determining it was “live”.

Police declined to comment on the precise nature of the object, but media reported it was a hand grenade.

“The preliminary investigation launched by the Swedish Police Authority on January 31st, following the discovery of a dangerous object at the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm, has been taken over by the Swedish Security Service,” the service said in a statement.

“In connection with this, the criminal classification has been changed to a terrorist crime,” it added.

More to follow…