Four men have pleaded guilty to destroying four Jewish community ambulances in an arson attack causing £1m of damage in north-west London.

Hamza Iqbal, 20, Rehan Khan, 19, Judex Atshatshi, and Saif Ali, both aged 18, pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey to a charge of destroying or damaging property being reckless whether life would be endangered.

The attack, which took place in the early hours of 23 March, saw four vehicles operated by the charity Hatzola set alight in Golders Green.

Prosecutors had said they believed the incident was a targeted attack against the Jewish community.

The court heard three of the men set fire to the fully stocked ambulances, while a fourth had waited in a nearby car.

After the ambulances were set alight, gas canisters exploded inside the vehicles.

As well as destroying each of the £250,000 vehicles, the fire damaged four electrical charging stations and cables costing approximately £5,000 each.

Leo Seelig, prosecuting, told the court that the Crown Prosecution Service would be arguing that the four men should be sentenced on the basis that the arson attack was related to terrorism.

Mrs Justice Cheema Grubb said she would not rule on the question of terrorism at this stage – with defence counsel arguing that there was no evidence for such a connection.

The judge said that the four would be sentenced following the outcome a trial of a fifth man, Subhan Ahmed, who has denied assisting an offender.

Iqbal and Khan, of Leyton, Atshatshi, of Dagenham, and Ali, of Walthamstow, were remanded into custody.

Run by volunteers, Hatzola has served the north London community of Golders Green, which has a large Jewish population, since 1979.

Hatzola, the Hebrew word for save or rescue, is a large non-profit, Jewish-led organisation that provides a free emergency medical response and transportation to hospitals regardless of faith by volunteer medics.

Community Security Trust, a charity working to protect British Jews from terrorism and antisemitism, welcomed the pleas and said the four’s actions “caused immense shock and distress across the Jewish community”.

“This was an appalling antisemitic act against a volunteer ambulance service providing emergency medical assistance to people of all backgrounds across north London, simply because those ambulances belonged to a Jewish charity,” a spokesperson added.

When the group are sentenced – which is expected to be in spring next year – prosecutors will allege that the incident was connected to terrorism. Lawyers for the men have told the court today that none of them are involved in terrorism.

The BBC understands that British intelligence chiefs were initially keeping an open mind as to whether the Iranian state or organisations working for it had a role in the Hatzola ambulance attack and other attacks against Jewish communities during 2026.

They later concluded that secret intelligence pointed to Iran or its proxies being involved in the attack.

That position has been further confirmed in their minds by the FBI’s investigation of and allegations against an Iranian-Iraqi man facing trial in Manhattan for orchestrating a series of attacks against Jewish communities across Europe

US court papers allege that Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi, a commander of an Iraqi militia, was linked to attacks in London, including the destruction of Jewish charity ambulances.

In May al-Saadi was arrested in Turkey and extradited to the US, with the US Department of Justice alleging he had a role in planning more than a dozen terrorist attacks in North America and Europe.

Publicly available court papers list a series of incidents across Europe that the FBI says he is linked to. In many cases the attacks on Jewish community interests were claimed online by a shadowy group, Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya, or the The Islamic Movement of the People of the Right Hand.

The US court papers say that the social media account for the group posted claims saying it was behind the ambulance attacks – and that al-Saadi had himself posted social media propaganda videos of the attack.

“On or about March 23, 2026, at approximately 1:45 a.m., three masked individuals carried out an arson attack on four Hatzalah Ambulances in London, United Kingdom,” reads the indictment before the US court.

“That same day, Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya posted on Telegram a propaganda video in which it claimed responsibility for the attack. On or about March 25, 2026, AL-SAADI posted on social media propaganda videos of the attack.”

The Department of Justice also alleges that Al-Saadi posted another propaganda videos relating to an attempted arson attack on Finchley Road Synagogue in north London in April.

US lawyers for Al-Saadi have said previously that he is a political prisoner. (BBC)