LONDON, June 16 (UPI) -- A Jewish cemetery in East London has become the third to be desecrated in Britain in a week.
Vandals smashed headstones and defaced graves with swastikas at the cemetery in West Ham, the Independent reported Thursday.
On one tomb the words "Jew Boy Dead. Ha Ha" were scrawled in marker.
The main target of the attack appeared to be a mausoleum built in the 19th century by the Rothschilds, one of Britain's most prominent Jewish families.
In a separate attack discovered Wednesday, two large swastikas and the words "Yids out" were painted on the wall of the Rainham Jewish cemetery in Essex. Last week, vandals smashed 100 gravestones in a historic cemetery in Manchester.
The discoveries came as the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance said it was "concerned at the considerable and steady increase of anti-Semitic incidents in the United Kingdom."
"While these incidents usually mirror tensions in the Middle East, representatives of the Jewish communities report there now seems to be a higher level of background violence against these communities," it said in a report Wednesday. An increasing number were reportedly coming from Muslim fundamentalist groups, it said.
