What is a ‘pogrom’? Why Rishi Sunak called Hamas attacks a pogrom after 6 Britons killed

Rishi Sunak told the House of Commons that October’s deadly attack by Hamas on Israel was a “pogrom” while addressing MPs.

Pogroms are generally associated with racially-motivated, and often deadly, attacks on Jewish communities during the 19th and 20th centuries in the Russian Empire.

The term, though, applies to any violent mob attack against members of a religious, racial or national minority.

Pogroms: a brutal history

Russian pogroms date back to the Kishinev pogrom of 1881, after the assassination of Tsar Alexander II – following false rumours that the Tsar’s killer was Jewish.

One of the most consequential pogroms took place in Nazi Germany, over several days in 1938. Kristallnacht (“the night of broken glass”) was so named because of the shards of glass left on the street when widows of Jewish-owned businesses and properties were smashed in by bricks and stones.

Nazi paramilitary groups killed 91 Jewish people across Germany and arrested 30,000 others, locking them up in concentration camps.

Several other deadly pogroms against Jewish people took place during the Second World War, including in Iraq, Romania, Poland, Lybia and Syria.

Why is Rishi Sunak using the term pogrom?

On Monday, Mr Sunak confirmed at least six British citizens were killed and 10 still missing, following last week’s attack on Israel, where around 1,400 people – including many civilians – were murdered by Hamas.

He said missing and murdered Britons were victims of a pogrom.

Addressing the House of Commons, Mr Sunak said: “We should call it by its name. It was a pogrom.”

He claimed the attacks were an “existential strike at the very idea of Israel as the home for the Jewish people.”

Mr Sunak said: “The terrible nature of these attacks means it is proving difficult to identify many of the deceased but with a heavy heart I can inform the House [of Commons] that at least six British citizens were killed, a further ten are missing, some of whom are feared to be among the dead.”

After a barrage of rocket fire into Israel from the Gaza Strip, Hamas militants infiltrated the country just over a week ago.

Hamas gunmen shot dead civilians in their homes, in the streets and at a music festival. They also took over 200 hostages.

Families of some of those missing Britons listened to Mr Sunak’s speech from the House of Commons’ public gallery. He called for the “immediate release of all hostages” taken by Hamas and stressed: “We stand with Israel… [We] support absolutely Israel’s right to defend itself.”

Retaliations ‘in accordance with international law’

In the week following Hamas’ attack, Israel has put Gaza under siege, launched thousands of retaliatory air strikes, killing at least 2,750 Gazans, and cut off electricity, food and water supplies.

Mr Sunak sought to draw a line between Muslims and Hamas, in the House of Commons, saying now was a “moment of great anguish for British Muslim communities”.

Kier Starmer, while also reiterating Israel’s right to “defend herself”, called on Israel’s airstrike and long-awaiting ground offensive on Gaza to be “conducted in accordance with international law”.

The Labour MP Richard Burgon told the House of Commons: “Horrific acts by Hamas do not justify responding with collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”