JERUSALEM, Dec 14 (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned Sunday’s deadly shooting at a Jewish holiday celebration in Sydney and said he had warned his Australian counterpart that the country’s support for Palestinian statehood would fuel antisemitism.
Gunmen opened fire during an event marking the first night of Hanukkah at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, killing at least 11 people in what Australian officials described as a targeted antisemitic attack. One of the suspected gunmen was also killed.
Netanyahu said the shooting was “cold blooded murder”.
He added that in August he had told Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in a letter that the Australian government’s policies were promoting and encouraging antisemitism in Australia.
“I wrote: ‘Your call for a Palestinian state pours fuel on the antisemitic fire. It rewards Hamas terrorists. It emboldens those who menace Australian Jews and encourages the Jew hatred now stalking your streets’,” Netanyahu said in a speech.
Albanese said on August 11 that Australia would recognise a Palestinian state at September’s U.N. General Assembly, a move that followed similar announcements by France, Britain and Canada.
In his speech, Netanyahu accused Albanese’s government of “doing nothing to stop the spread of antisemitism in Australia”.
“You let the disease spread and the result is the horrific attacks on Jews we saw today,” he added.
Albanese convened a meeting of the country’s national security council on Sunday and condemned the attack, saying the evil that was unleashed was “beyond comprehension”.
“This is a targeted attack on Jewish Australians on the first day of Hanukkah, which should be a day of joy, a celebration of faith,” he said.
Sunday’s shootings were the most serious of a string of antisemitic attacks on synagogues, buildings and cars in Australia since the beginning of Israel’s war in Gaza in October 2023.
(Reporting by Maayan Lubell, Tamar Uriel-Beeri and Steven Scheer; Editing by Sharon Singleton and Helen Popper)
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