2026 Berlin Pride attack

On the evening of 25 July 2026, 21-year-old Lebanese-German Abdul Ballout drove a van into a crowd of pedestrians during Berlin Christopher Street Day, a pride celebration in the Tiergarten in central Berlin, Germany. One woman was killed and 29 people were injured, several critically. Ballout fled on foot, and a large-scale manhunt was launched. He was fatally shot the next day by police when they attempted to arrest him.

The pride event, which had drawn hundreds of thousands of attendees, was called off shortly after the attack. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said that it was suspected to be an Islamist terrorist attack.

Two months before carrying out the attack, Ballout was convicted of planning an attack and received a suspended sentence from a juvenile court.

Berlin Pride, known locally as Christopher Street Day, after the New York street where Stonewall Inn is situated,^[2] is Berlin's annual pride celebration, commemorating the 1969 Stonewall riots. It is a combination of parades and demonstrations for LGBTQ+ equality and protection against discrimination.^[3] The 2026 parade drew hundreds of thousands of participants along its route through central Berlin, culminating in a closing rally and concert near the Brandenburg Gate.^[4]

At approximately 22:00 on 25 July 2026,^[5] a van struck pedestrians on the Ahornsteig pedestrian path in Tiergarten, off the route the pride march had earlier followed.^[6][3] The van collided with a tree in the park, after which the driver attacked bystanders with a machete and ran away.^[7][8][9]

The pride event was cancelled at about 22:15,^[10] cutting short the closing rally near the Brandenburg Gate. Organisers and police told attendees to leave the area immediately.^[11] Berlin's fire department said its psychosocial emergency support teams treated around 30 people at the scene who were not physically injured but required support.^[4] Police sealed off access to the Tiergarten and the nearby Bundestag area,^[12][5][13] and officers at the scene were described as heavily equipped, using ballistic helmets and rapid-fire weapons.^[14]

A 65-year-old woman from Poland died at the scene after initial resuscitation attempts by first responders.^[15][16] Twenty-nine people were injured, some seriously.^[17][18] By the morning after the attack, none of the casualties were in a critical condition.^[19] Police established a dedicated telephone line for relatives seeking information.^[11]

As of the morning of 26 July, police said an intensive manhunt for one or more perpetrators was under way.^[4]Der Tagesspiegel reported that videos of arrests circulating on social media around this time showed unrelated detentions elsewhere at the edges of the pride crowd, not of the perpetrator.^[14]

Later on 26 July, Berlin police and the General Public Prosecutor's Office identified the suspect as 21-year-old Abdul Ballout, who was tied to Berlin's "Islamist scene",^[20][21][17] and launched a public manhunt. An Iranian man, initially believed to be a passenger in the van, was arrested the same night but later released without any charges.^[22] Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt described the incident as "an Islamic terrorist attack".^[17]

Berlin police and the General Public Prosecutor's Office issued a wanted notice that described Ballout as around 1.9 metres tall and of slim build, with black hair, and warned that he could be armed and dangerous.^[23][24] Ballout was born in Berlin in 2005 into a Lebanese Muslim family.^[25][26] Police said he had known links to Islamist circles,^[27] and Dobrindt stated that Ballout "had previously drawn attention to himself through a high volume of criminal offences, radicalisation and affiliation with the Islamist scene".^[28]

According to details released by the Berlin public prosecutor's office, a juvenile court convicted him in February 2022 of assault and robbery for assaulting a victim at a Berlin high school in 2019 and robbing another victim of a pair of headphones in 2020.^[29] He later tried to join Islamic State abroad and in May 2026 was convicted of preparing a serious act of violence endangering the state; he received a suspended sentence and was freed weeks before the attack.^[30][28] On 3 July, police searched his home on suspicion of weapons possession but found only a toy gun.^[31] He had recently been transferred to a deradicalisation programme whose staff judged his cooperation "fake" and planned to alert authorities.^[31] That a suspect with this record was released and not under close surveillance became a controversy of the aftermath, drawing criticism from politicians, security experts, and a police union.^[32] After the attack, the German government began to consider banning convicted terrorists from getting suspended sentences.^[33]

On the evening of 26 July, Ballout was shot and killed by the SEK during an attempted arrest in Spandau.^[34][35][36]

Governing Mayor Kai Wegner visited the scene and condemned the attack as a strike against Berlin's open society, posting that the city's freedom had been targeted.^[37][11] Chancellor Friedrich Merz condemned the killing as an "abhorrent act" and said he was in close contact with, and being continually briefed by security authorities together with federal interior minister Alexander Dobrindt; in a statement, Merz said he would "make sure this horrific act is fully investigated and punished".^[37][4][38] Berlin's state interior senator, Iris Spranger, said she was shocked by the attack on a peacefully celebrating crowd and that she was in close contact with security authorities.^[4] The Berlin Senate's queer-affairs commissioner, Alfonso Pantisano, described the attack as a day of "great mourning for the queer community".^[21]

On 26 July, a remembrance rally was held at Pariser Platz. Around 600 attendants were registered, but the organiser estimated the turnout at around 10,000. A memorial march from Marienkirche to the Brandenburg Gate was planned for the same afternoon.^[19]

On the same day, it was reported that German officials had called for tighter laws against known extremists. The Alternative for Germany party accused Friedrich Merz of failing to deal with Islamic radicalism in Germany.^[39]

• Media related to 2026 CSD Berlin attack at Wikimedia Commons