Police agents on Thursday detained seven men with a Middle Eastern appearance who were traveling in two cars to Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, a Jewish community leader told JNS based on initial reports from the scene.
The operation was “apparently after police were tipped off,” the community leader, Robert Gregory, CEO of the Australian Jewish Association, told JNS.
New South Wales Police said in a statement shortly after 8:15 p.m. that the operation had concluded and there was no ongoing risk to the community.
“Police have not identified any connection to the current police investigation of the Bondi terror attack,” the statement said. The statement did not say whether the detainees had been released or if anything had been recovered in their possession.
Gregory said that in his understanding, police were responding to information that the men were headed to the scene of the Dec. 14 massacre, in which two suspected jihadists murdered 15 people and wounded dozens more at a Chanukah celebration.
At least one car had license plates identifying it as registered in Victoria, the state south of New South Wales, whose capital is Sydney. Police rammed that car with a tactical operations unit vehicle before detaining the men, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.
“It remains to be seen exactly what happened,” Gregory said. “Police took it very seriously; it’s quite intense policing for Australia.”
Gregory is among the many critics of Australian authorities’ policies in the lead-up to the massacre. Anti-Israel rallies featuring calls such as “Globalize the intifada” were allowed to take place without intervention, even as antisemitic incidents quadrupled in Australia after Oct. 7, 2023.
The police’s handling of the attack itself has also come under criticism as footage emerged of police officers taking cover for long minutes as the perpetrators took aim and delivered rapid fire at participants in the Chanukah party. They killed at least two passersby who tried to stop them, and shot and killed a third who succeeded in disarming one of the terrorists.
