Record amount of anti-Muslim abuse reported in UK since 7 October attacks

A record number of anti-Muslim attacks and incidents of abuse were reported in the UK since the 7 October attacks last year, a national monitoring group has said.

In exclusive figures shared with the Guardian, Tell Mama UK said it had recorded 4,971 incidents of anti-Muslim hate between 7 October 2023 and 30 September 2024, the highest total ever recorded in the past 14 years.

Next week it will be a year since Hamas and allied groups unleashed an unprecedented attack on southern Israel. Approximately 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.

In the wake of the attacks, Israel declared war in Gaza and launched a year-long military campaign which has since killed more than 41,000 people, mainly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Tell Mama, a monitoring group that tracks complaints of anti-Muslim hate crimes, said 63% of the hate cases that had been reported to them in the UK were abusive in nature while 27% were threatening behaviour. The majority of the incidents took place in London, the north-west of England, Yorkshire and the Midlands.

The rise in Islamophobic incidents in the past year has coincided with a sharp rise in antisemitism in the UK. The Community Security Trust recorded more than 5,500 antisemitic incidents in the year between 7 October 2023 and 30 September 2024, three times the number recorded in the UK in the previous year.

Iman Atta, the director of Tell Mama UK, said the 7 October attacks had led to a "backlash against British Muslims", with hate incidents particularly targeting Middle Eastern communities, those who are visibly Muslim and Muslim women.

"This has been at both a street and online level and British Muslims have been called 'Hamas', 'Hezbollah', 'terrorists' and 'killers'," Atta said. "This rise was measurable from post-October 7 and continued for several months."

She added: "There is also a sense of anger and deep frustration within Muslim communities about the large number of civilian deaths and killings of Palestinians in Gaza. It is resonating deeply within large sections of Muslim communities."

The director said since Tell Mama's launch in 2012, the number of anti-Muslim cases reported to it had increased by 800-1,000%.

Atta attributed the rise in anti-Muslim hatred not only to the 7 October attacks but also to the riots in the wake of the Southport knife attack, when fake news spread online claiming the perpetrator of the attack was a Muslim asylum seeker.

Attta said the violent unrest in the summer, which saw mosques targeted and hotels housing asylum seekers set alight, had shown that "there is a segment of society that carries racism and anti-Muslim sentiment and they think this is normal".

"The anti-migrant, anti-Muslim narratives, mixed with grooming suggestions and with Muslim communities being called 'Hamas' and 'terrorist' tells us that international incidents are colouring the view of some fellow citizens against Muslim communities in the UK," she said.

"Anti-Muslim hate is a cancer, it is a hate that needs concerted action to challenge it and some politicians do not even speak about it. It says much about those politicians that they cannot even say anything about this form of hate. Sadly, there are many of them," she said.