Melbourne — Australian police said Monday they are hunting for three suspects over an arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue, designating it a terrorist act. Mask-wearing attackers set the Adass Israel Synagogue ablaze before dawn on Friday, police said, gutting much of the building. Some congregants were inside the single-story building at the time but no serious injuries were reported.
The fire sparked international condemnation, including from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Police have “three suspects in that matter, who we are pursuing,” Victorian police chief commissioner Shane Patton told a news conference.
Investigations over the weekend had made “significant progress,” Patton said, declining to provide further details of the operation.
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Officials from the federal and state police, as well as Australia’s intelligence agency, met on Monday and concluded that the fire was “likely a terrorist incident,” the police chief said.
“Based on that, I am very confident that we now have had an attack, a terrorist attack on that synagogue,” Patton said.
Australia’s reaction to antisemitism “on the rise”
Counterterrorism police have joined the probe. Under Australian law, a terrorist act is one that causes death, injury or serious property damage to advance a political, religious or ideological cause and is aimed at intimidating the public or a government.
The official designation unlocks help from other federal agencies for the investigation, said Australian National University terrorism researcher Michael Zekulin.
“Basically you get additional resources that you might not otherwise get,” he told AFP.
There was no information to suggest further attacks were likely and Australia’s terror threat assessment remained at the level of “probable,” said Mike Burgess, director-general of the Australian Security and Intelligence Organization.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who has denounced the synagogue attack as an “outrage,” announced the creation of a federal police taskforce targeting antisemitism.
“Antisemitism is a major threat and antisemitism has been on the rise,” Albanese told a news conference, citing the synagogue blaze and recent vandalism.
The taskforce will be made up of federal police to be deployed across the country as needed, officials said. They will focus on threats, violence and hatred towards the Jewish community and parliamentarians.
The war in Gaza has sparked protests from supporters of Israel and the Palestinian people in cities around Australia, as in much of the world.
In January, Australian lawmakers ushered in a series of new laws in a bid to get to grips with a spike in antisemitic acts, including banning the performance of the Nazi salute in public and the display or sale of Nazi hate symbols such as the swastika. The new laws also made the act of glorifying or praising acts of terrorism a criminal offense.
Australia’s Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said at the time that the laws sent “a clear message: there is no place in Australia for acts and symbols that glorify the horrors of the Holocaust and terrorist acts.”
Israeli, Australian leaders “respectfully disagree” on definition of antisemitism
Netanyahu attacked the Australian government’s stance in the run-up to the fire.
“This heinous act cannot be separated from the anti-Israel sentiment emanating from the Australian Labor government,” he said after the attack, declaring that “anti-Israel sentiment is antisemitism.”
Australia voted last week in favor of a United Nations General Assembly resolution that demanded the end of Israel’s “unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
New Zealand, Britain, and Canada were among 157 countries that voted for the resolution, with eight against, including the U.S.
Australian Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus rejected Netanyahu’s accusation.
“He’s absolutely wrong. I respectfully disagree with Mr. Netanyahu,” Dreyfus told national broadcaster ABC on Monday. “Australia remains a close friend of Israel, as we have been since the Labor government recognized the State of Israel when it was created by the United Nations. Now that remains the position.”
