Paris prosecutors opened an investigation Tuesday into dozens of Stars of David daubed on buildings around the city and its suburbs, seen as threatening Jews amid the war between Israel and Hamas.

Fresh stars were painted overnight on the facades of several buildings in a southern district of Paris, an AFP journalist saw on Tuesday.

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The Union of Jewish Students of France said they were designed to mirror the way Jews were forced to wear the stars by the Nazi regime.

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Jacques Isaac Azeroual, a kosher butcher in the city’s 19th district, which has a large Jewish community, said his customers had fallen by half.

“People are demoralised. They are scared of going out to shop,” he told AFP, adding that he shuts an hour early and covers his kippa with a hat when he leaves for fear of aggression.

The government says more than 800 incidents of anti-Semitism were registered in France in the three weeks after the Hamas assault.