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Berlin Pride attack ends
A suspect in the deadly Berlin Pride attack that left one person dead and 29 injured was shot and killed by police during a confrontation on Sunday in a suburb of the city, authorities said.
“20 Minutes with AFP Published July 26, 2026 at 1:30 PM • Updated July 26, 2026 at 5:08 PM The investigation is progressing rapidly after the tragedy that struck the German capital”
Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said the attack occurred a few hundred meters from a party near the Brandenburg Gate that was supposed to close out the city’s Pride festival, known as Christopher Street Day.
Prosecutors said Abdul Ballout had previously sought to join the militant Islamic State group, and police said he was tracked down around 6 p.m. Sunday at a garden in Spandau, a Berlin suburb.
Police said he apparently ran toward officers with a sharp instrument, and police fired at least one shot, with Ballout dying at the scene.
The attack occurred Saturday evening around 10 p.m. in Tiergarten park in central Berlin, a few hundred meters from the Brandenburg Gate, the main gathering place on the evening of the Pride march.
Officials and witnesses react
German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said, "Everything we are seeing here points to us dealing with an Islamic terror attack," as authorities revised the toll to 29 injured.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz urged the nation to remain united, saying, "Don’t" in the aftermath of the attack, while Berlin’s conservative mayor Kai Wegner denounced an "attack against our free and open society."
In Berlin, hundreds of mourners gathered at a memorial at the iconic gate, where they laid down flowers, candles, rainbow flags and homemade signs, including a cardboard one that said: “the only thing more powerful than hate is love.”
Ashley Jump, a 26-year-old U.K. resident who had traveled to Berlin for Saturday’s Pride parade, returned Sunday to leave flowers at the memorial and said, “They’ll never erase us, we’ll never be gone, we’ll never be gone.”
Andre Lehmann, a top official with LSVD+, said, "This suspected attack hits the heart of the queer community."
Investigation and political stakes
Authorities said the suspect was tracked down after a search that lasted nearly 24 hours following the attack in downtown Berlin, and prosecutors said Ballout had traveled to Lebanon in 2025 with the goal of going to Syria to join the Islamic State group.
“A woman was killed, and 29 people were injured Saturday night when a vehicle drove into a crowd near Berlin’s Pride celebration, in what German officials are investigating as a suspected Islamist terrorist attack”
The suspect had been arrested in Lebanon last year and sentenced by a military court to three months’ imprisonment for offenses including incitement to religious and sectarian conflict, and prosecutors said he returned to Germany after completing his sentence and was arrested at the Berlin airport.
In May, a juvenile court in Berlin convicted Ballout of preparing a serious act of violence endangering the state and publishing Islamic State propaganda on his Instagram account, handing down a suspended sentence of 1 year and 10 months in youth custody that Berlin prosecutors had appealed.
The attack prompted organizers to cancel the rest of the planned events, with police asking participants not to cross the park through the woods but to use only the streets.
Politically, the attack came as Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s governing coalition faced regional elections due in two months, with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) expected to campaign on immigration and security, and the incident revived memories of similar vehicle-ramming attacks in Germany in recent years.
