Strangers attacked a former Israeli soldier in Berlin with irritant gas.

As the police announced on Saturday, the 29-year-old wore a sweater with the symbol of the Israeli armed forces in the incident on Friday evening.

In front of a S-Bahn station in the east of the city, the police said he was asked about his belief, immediately attacked with irritant gas in the face and pushed to the ground.

According to the information, he could not determine whether it was a single perpetrator or several people who then fled.

The man was treated on an outpatient basis by the rescue workers.

The police state security is investigating because of anti-Jewish background.

The President of the German-Israeli Society, Uwe Becker, condemned the attack.

"Anyone who is brought to anti-Semitic acts by Jewish symbols or symbols of the State of Israel and its institutions has no place in our society."

According to the anti-Semitism commissioner of the state of Berlin, Samuel Salzborn, a social climate has recently become visible "in which anti-Semitism is repeatedly played down and denied".

In such a climate, violent anti-Semitic criminals felt encouraged to follow up their thinking with anti-Semitic acts like on Friday.