On Wednesday, the discovery of a trailer full of explosives probably intended to explode a synagogue in Sydney, Australia, may have prevented a “mass event,” said South South Police on Thursday From the south, while adding that reports on the issue had potentially compromised a police investigation into a series of anti -Semitic attacks.
Several people “around the periphery” of the expected attack were arrested since the caravan filled with explosives was discovered, the police said, adding that the owner was already in police custody for a separate anti -Semitic attack. However, no arrest directly linked to the incident has been made.
According to police, there is growing evidence that the continuous wave of attacks on the Jewish community in Australia is “orchestrated” from above.
On Wednesday, after reports began to appear in the Australian press, NSW police confirmed that they had found a trailer containing explosives in the suburbs of Sydney de Dural on January 19. There was “a certain indication” that the explosives discovered were intended to explode a synagogue, they said.
On Thursday, the investigators said that the trailer contained Powergel explosives stolen from a mining site, powerful enough to create a 40-meter wave of dynamism that could trigger a “mass victim event”.
Sky News Australia, Harri Markson reported on Thursday that explosives were intended for the great synagogue in Sydney and Sydney Jewish Museum in Darlinghurst. The police did not confirm this.
The leaders of the Jewish community charged that the police were not doing enough to resolve the case and insisted that they should not have been kept in ignorance of the incident.
A member of the Jewish community reads messages attached to a fence where flowers were left to the adass Israel synagogue in the suburbs of Melbourne de Ripponlea on December 9, 2024. (Martin Keep / AFP)
“Until we know the masters of puppets and what are their motivations, it is impossible to point out with a degree of certainty on who is responsible,” said Peter Wertheim, co-chief of the executive council management of the Australian Jewish Community (ECAJ).
NSW police commissioner Karen Webb replied by saying that the incident was the subject of a quietly investigation, and that new public revelations from details in the media would make the case resolution more difficult.
“The fact that this information is now in the public domain compromised our survey, and this has been detrimental to some of the strategies we could have used,” webb said.
Webb stressed that the threat had been “attenuated very early”, so there was no urgent need that the incident was publicly shared.
The NSW police ‘sub-commissioner Dave Hudson added that the police had found indications of bad players coordinating the attacks above those who perpetuate attacks.
Regarding those detained in connection with the caravan, he declared that the police had not identified any “specific ideology which would led them to commit the acts they have committed, and who tells us that they are orchestrated from ‘One way or another. “
The South New Wales Police Commissioner David Hudson speaks in Sydney, January 29, 2025. (Image Steven Saphore / AAP via AP)
On Wednesday evening, three distinct incidents of anti-Jewish graffiti were also reported in Australia, including anti-Semitic insults painted on the wall of the college of the Jewish school of Mount Sinai in Maroubra.
Australia has experienced an increase in anti -Semitic actions since the attack on October 7, 2023 of the Hamas terrorist group against Israel, which sparked the war in the Gaza Strip.
The number of anti-Jewish incidents in Australia quadrupled during the year following the terrorist assault in southern Israel, according to data from the executive council of the Australian Jewish community.
These have included several criminal fire attacks against synagogues and community centers in Sydney and Melbourne and the repeated spray of anti-Jewish and anti-Israelis graffiti on properties or vehicles in areas with large Jewish populations. Last month, also saw a neonazi rally by the Parliament of Melbourne.
In December 2024, New South Wales launched Strike Force Pearl, whose team includes agents against terrorism and special tactics, to investigate the crimes of anti-Semitic hatred in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, Following a criminal fire attack against the Adass Israel synagogue.
Federal Australian police have also launched the Avalite operation to investigate the sharp increase in anti -Semitic crimes which followed Hamas’ attack in Israel.
Last week, Australian police revealed for the first time that they thought that the current scourge of anti -Semitic attacks in the country could be coordinated by foreign actors.
