TfL hate crime 'linked to Israel-Gaza war'

The Israel-Gaza conflict is continuing to be associated with elevated levels of hate crime on London's transport network, senior police officers have told the London Assembly.

Hate crime on Transport for London (TfL) services surged in late 2023, particularly incidents targeting Jewish and Muslim communities, and has not returned to pre-October 2023 levels despite a recent decline.

British Transport Police (BTP) Ch Supt Chris Casey told the assembly's police and crime committee: "International events play a really big part – they do generate increases in hate crime and we see those reports."

These have played out on the capital's Tube, trains and buses, the committee heard.

Ch Supt Casey said: "Towards the end of 2023, we saw a big increase in terms of antisemitic hate crime.

"And that is in the context of the Jewish community actually being a very small percentage of the population and then even a smaller percentage of those who are Jewish that decide to travel anyway on the network.

"[There was] a massive increase – and we did see exactly the increase that the Met did as well."

BTP figures show that between January and August 2024, hate crime across the public transport network rose 27.8% year on year, from 1,551 to 1,982 offences.

The number later fell by 8.3%, from 1,383 incidents in 2024 to 1,268 in June 2025, but remains above levels recorded before October 2023.

Mandy McGregor, TfL's head of policing and community safety, said there had been a reduction of 8% since the peak of the conflict but warned levels were still higher than before the war.

"That's from a peak when the Gaza-Israel situation [started]. So we have seen it come down, but it's still higher than levels before October 2023," she said.

London has hosted hundreds of pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel demonstrations since the conflict began, including some protests inside major transport hubs such as King's Cross and Liverpool Street stations.

Ch Supt Casey said large stations were not an "ideal" location for protests, but that police had to balance the right to protest with keeping transport running safely.

"As long as the station can safely operate and it doesn't impact critical national infrastructure then we have to find a way to balance those rights as long as it's lawful activity," he said.

"So there may be things that are said that will shock and offend and that maybe we don't like or people don't, but there is that balance."

The committee also questioned officials about the impact of so-called subvertising, where political messages are fly-posted over approved adverts, and whether some material could amount to hate crime.

Despite TfL banning political advertising, marketing material calling for a boycott of Coca-Cola appeared on some Tube trains last week.

Conservative assembly member Lord Bailey said: "These would appear to be hate crimes, there's certainly a large section of the public, myself included, who consider them a hate crime."

BTP Supt Sam Painter said unauthorised advertising was removed as soon as it was identified.

"We do frequently see acts of what we call subvertising, so the subversion of advertising on TfL's network for a whole variety of different political groups," he said.

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