RSS
Australian Police Announce Major Breakthrough in Hunt for Melbourne Synagogue Arsonists
Arsonists heavily damaged the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne, Australia, on Dec. 6, 2024. Photo: Screenshot
Five months after the arson attack on Melbourne’s Adass Israel Synagogue, Australian law enforcement announced a major breakthrough that could lead to the identification and arrest of those responsible for the assault that shook the local Jewish community.
The attack took place on Dec. 5, 2024, at approximately 4.30 am. At the time, two worshippers attending morning prayers spotted the flames and quickly alerted emergency services and firefighters, helping to prevent casualties and more extensive damage.
Thanks to the swift response of local authorities, the fire was contained to one section of the synagogue. While the neighboring area was heavily filled with smoke, it remained unharmed. No injuries were reported during the attack, though two people were hospitalized for smoke inhalation.
Following the incident, local authorities established a Joint Counter Terrorism Team, including Victorian state police and the Australian Federal Police (AFP), to lead the investigation into the assault and address the rising wave of antisemitic incidents targeting Jewish communities nationwide.
On Thursday, the Victorian Joint Counter Terrorism Team (JCTT) released footage of the attack, which they believe has provided a crucial breakthrough in the case, and urged anyone with information to come forward.
The Victorian Joint Counter Terrorism Team, an intiative between Victoria Police, @AusFedPolice and @ASIOGovAu has released footage of those believed to responsible for an arson attack on a Synagogue in Ripponlea last year.
https://t.co/YF7sIp063s pic.twitter.com/ZkmxskJ20K— Victoria Police (@VictoriaPolice) May 15, 2025
Based on the footage, authorities have identified a blue 2020 Volkswagen Golf sedan as the getaway car used in the attack, where two masked men set fire to the synagogue established by Holocaust survivors.
According to police records, the car is a stolen vehicle linked to several crimes around the same period, including an arson and shooting in a Melbourne suburb on the night of the synagogue attack, as well as a nightclub fire in November 2024.
As of now, authorities have arrested two suspects connected to the nightclub arson, both linked to the stolen vehicle. Although there is no evidence connecting them to the synagogue fire, investigators say they are closing in on those responsible.
“We believe several offenders are directly and indirectly connected to the synagogue arson, and our terrorism investigation is ongoing,” police said in a statement. “We remind those involved that terrorism carries a life sentence.”
“It is only a matter of time before the police knock on your door. It is in your interest to come forward now,” authorities warned those involved in the crime.
Tess Walsh, deputy commander of Victoria Police’s counter-terrorism unit, said investigators have worked “tirelessly over the past five months” to determine not only who carried out the attack, but also who planned it and why.” Authorities have appealed to the public for assistance, stressing that any detail may be crucial.
Stephen Nutt, AFP Assistant Commissioner for Counter Terrorism and Special Investigations Command, stated there was “no indication” of neo-Nazi or other extremist group involvement but emphasized that the task force continues to investigate the incident as a “politically motivated attack on the Jewish community.”
“The JCTT is leaving no stone unturned in this investigation, and I want to thank the Jewish community for their patience and support,” Nutt said during a press conference.
Last year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the torching of the synagogue, arguing the “abhorrent act of antisemitism” was linked to what he described as the Australian government’s “extreme anti-Israeli position.”
Antisemitism spiked to record levels in Australia — especially in Sydney and Melbourne, which are home to some 85 percent of the country’s Jewish population — following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s bloody invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.
According to a report from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), the country’s Jewish community experienced over 2,000 antisemitic incidents between October 2023 and September 2024, a significant increase from 495 in the prior 12 months.
Following Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities, the number of antisemitic physical assaults in Australia rose from 11 in 2023 to 65 in 2024. The level of antisemitism for the past year was six times the average of the preceding 10 years.
The post Australian Police Announce Major Breakthrough in Hunt for Melbourne Synagogue Arsonists first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Iran Says Eight Arrested for Suspected Links to Israel’s Mossad Spy Agency
The Mossad recruitment ad. Photo: Screenshot.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they had arrested eight people suspected of trying to transmit the coordinates of sensitive sites and details about senior military figures to Israel’s Mossad, Iranian state media reported.
They are accused of having provided the information to the Mossad spy agency during Israel’s air war on Iran in June, when it attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and killed top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
A Guards statement alleged that the suspects had received specialized training from Mossad via online platforms. It said they were apprehended in northeastern Iran before carrying out their plans, and that materials for making launchers, bombs, explosives and booby traps had been seized.
State media reported earlier this month that Iranian police had arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the 12-day war with Israel, though they did not say what these people had been suspected of doing.
Security forces conducted a campaign of widespread arrests and also stepped up their street presence during the brief war that ended in a US-brokered ceasefire.
Iran has executed at least eight people in recent months, including nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi, hanged on August 9 for passing information to Israel about another scientist killed in Israeli airstrikes.
Human rights groups say Iran uses espionage charges and fast-tracked executions as tools for broader political repression.
RSS
Body of Idan Shtivi, Murdered on Oct. 7, Retrieved from Gaza in Special IDF Operation
Idan Shtivi. Photo: Courtesy of the family
i24 News – The body of Idan Shtivi, a 28-year-old murdered by Palestinian jihadists at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, was recovered in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet in central Gaza, it was cleared for publication on Saturday.
Shtivi’s remains were returned to Israel alongside the body of Ilan Weiss, another hostage killed during the October 7 massacre.
“Idan Shtivi was abducted from the Tel Gama area and brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists after acting to rescue and evacuate others from the Nova music festival on October 7th, 2023. He was 28 years old at the time of his death,” read an IDF press release.
“Following an identification process conducted at the National Center for Forensic Medicine, along with the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate, the Hostages and Missing Persons Headquarters notified his family.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Shviti “was a gifted student of sustainability and governance, and a courageous individual” who acted heroically on October 7, helping others flee.
“He was killed in the process and his body was abducted to Gaza by Hamas. My wife and I send our heartfelt condolences to the Shtivi family. So far, 207 hostages have been returned, 148 of them alive. We will continue to act tirelessly and decisively to bring back all our hostages—living and deceased.”
RSS
Woman Stabbed at Ottawa Grocery Store in Latest Antisemitic Attack
A social media post by the alleged attacker, Joseph Rooke of Cornwall, Ontario. Photo: Screenshot via i24
i24 News – The stabbing of a Jewish woman at an Ottawa grocery by a man with a long history of antisemitic posts on social media, the latest antisemitic hate crime in Canada, sparked outrage and prompted condemnation from officials including the prime minister.
Both the victim and the attacker are in their 70s. The woman is reportedly in serious condition.
The suspect was identified as Joseph Rooke, who has authored a series of lengthy rambling screeds on social media, ranting against Israel and Jews.
“Judaism is the world’s oldest cult,” he writes in one post, going on to say “over time jews have become insidious in governments, businesses, media conglomerates, and educational institutions in order to do what they do better than anyone else. Jews are the world’s masters of propaganda, gaslighting, demonization, demagoguery, and outright lying. Using their collective wealth they have become masters of reprisal.”
“I am under no obligation whatsoever, legal, moral, or otherwise, to like jews and I do not. If that means I meet the jewish definition of an anti-semite, so be it.”
Canada has seen a steep spike in antisemitic attacks over the past two years, including a recent incident in Montreal where a Hasidic Jew was beaten in front on his children.
After Prime Minister Mark Carney condemned the incident, many, including former Israel’s ambassador the US Michael Oren, pointed out that Carney’s rhetoric and policies contribute to the increasing insecurity of Canada’s Jewish community through uncritical embrace of outrageous and easily disprovable allegations that Israel and its supporters were guilty of the worst crimes against humanity.