Primary school children have said they “hate all Jews” in playground rows, a charity has warned, amid a rise in anti-Semitism.

The Community Security Trust, a charity that protects Jewish people from abuse, said it had received reports of “abhorrent” incidents in British schools since the Israel-Hamas war began.

Amanda Bomsztyk, its northern regional director, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We’re having children, as young as junior schools, where they’re having fellow pupils come over to them asking them ‘which side they’re on’.

“When they say that they’re Jewish, they’re telling them they ‘hate all Jews’. This is primary school-aged children, so it’s quite abhorrent.”

She said other young people were being “abused on the streets” including “Nazi salutes”, in harassment that is “the worst we’ve ever seen”.

Reports rise by 880 per cent

And in universities, Ms Bomsztyk said that students in WhatsApp groups are “suddenly reading messages that are so hateful from people that they thought were their friends”, which has been “really shocking” for a generation among whom the Holocaust is a more distant part of history.

The charity revealed that in Greater Manchester, which has the largest Jewish population in England outside of London, anti-Semitism reports have risen by 880 per cent, with 266 incidents reported between the Hamas terror attack on Oct 7 and last Friday.

It comes after it emerged earlier this month that the number of anti-Semitic incidents across the UK had surpassed 1,000 in the month since the conflict began.

Earlier this month, it emerged that a swastika and the words “Kill Jews” had been found daubed in the lavatories at the £25,000-a-year private Channing School in Highgate, north London.

Lindsey Hughes, the headmistress of Channing School, said staff had “acted swiftly as soon as we were aware of it, ensuring no more students had access to the bathroom and removing graffiti immediately”.

Four Jewish schools in Britain also shut temporarily last month “in the interests of safety”.

Other Jewish students have resorted to disguising their uniforms because of a fear of retaliatory attacks, while at universities some have said they are covering kippahs with baseball caps and hiding Star of David necklaces.

Gillian Keegan, the Education Secretary, has sought to clamp down on anti-Semitism in schools and universities since the war began, telling them they must “call out anti-Semitism”.

She wrote last month: “We should never forget that the Holocaust did not begin with mass killings or the concentration camps, but in the streets, in the classrooms, in the workplaces of Europe.”