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Australian PM Blames Antisemitism for Arson Attack on Melbourne Synagogue, Manhunt Underway for Suspects
Arsonists heavily damaged the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne, Australia, on Dec. 6, 2024. Photo: Screenshot
Arsonists heavily damaged a synagogue in Melbourne, Australia, on Friday in what Australia’s prime minister called an antisemitic attack.
The fire at the Adass Israel Synagogue, which injured one person and caused extensive damage to the building, began early on Friday. Australian police said the assailants were wearing masks and they were searching for two people suspected of deliberately starting the fire.
While investigators have not yet identified a motive, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese blamed antisemitism.
“This was a shocking incident to be unequivocally condemned. There is no place in Australia for an outrage such as this,” Albanese told reporters. “To attack a place of worship is an attack on Australian values. To attack a synagogue is an act of antisemitism, is attacking the right that all Australians should have to practice their faith in peace and security.”
He added in a statement that counter-terrorism police will liaise with Victoria state police on the investigation.
State police in Victoria, of which Melbourne is the capital, said a worshiper at the synagogue saw two people who appeared to be spreading accelerant inside the building before setting it on fire.
“We believe it was deliberate. We believe it has been targeted. What we don’t know is why and we’ll get to the why,” Detective Inspector Chris Murray told reporters.
“There was some banging on a door with some liquid thrown inside and was lit alight. The few people inside the synagogue ran outside the back door; one of them got burnt,” Adass Israel Synagogue board member Benjamin Klein told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
About 60 firefighters with 17 fire trucks reportedly responded to the blaze.
Victoria state Premier Jacinta Allan said in a statement that the synagogue was “built by Holocaust survivors” in the suburb of Ripponlea.
“Every available resource will be deployed to find these criminals who tried to tear a community apart,” Allan added, noting there would be a heavier police presence in the area. “We stand against antisemitism now and forever.”
In a post on X/Twitter, the president of the Zionist Federation of Australia called on the government to do more to combat rising antisemitism.
“The firebombing of a synagogue in Melbourne appears to be another shocking escalation of the hate that we have seen brazenly displayed on the streets of Melbourne every week for over a year,” Jeremy Leibler said.
“No one should be surprised; this violent attack is a direct consequence of words turning into actions. Jew-hatred, left unchecked, endangers all Australians. Enough is enough, this is a stain on our nation. It’s time for all levels of government to turn their words into actions to stamp out this Jew-hatred,” he added.
Daniel Aghion, president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), called on all of Australia to condemn the arson attack.
“Don’t leave the Jewish people behind. Don’t isolate us. Don’t leave us exposed to the risk of attacks upon our religious institutions, our communal institutions,” Aghion tols reporters. “Stand with us. Stand against this hate. And stand against this kind of horrendous attack which should not occur on Australian soil.”
Friday’s incident came just days after the ECAJ published a new report showing that antisemitism in Australia quadrupled to record levels over the past year, with Australian Jews experiencing more than 2,000 antisemitic incidents between October 2023 and September 2024.
The data included dozens of assaults and hundreds of incidents of property destruction and hate speech. Physical assaults recorded by the group jumped 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.
As The Algemeiner has previously reported, the number of attacks on Jews — digital, political, and physical — has skyrocketed in Australia since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.
In one notorious episode in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack, hundreds of pro-Hamas protesters gathered outside the Sydney Opera House chanting “gas the Jews,” “f—k the Jews,” and other epithets.
The explosion of hate also included vandalism and threats of gun violence, as well as incidents such as a brutal attack on a Jewish man in a park in Sydney.
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Some Progress in Hostage Talks But Major Issues Remain, Source tells i24NEWS
Demonstrators hold signs and pictures of hostages, as relatives and supporters of Israeli hostages kidnapped during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas protest demanding the release of all hostages in Tel Aviv, Israel, Feb. 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Itai Ron
i24 News – A source familiar with the ongoing negotiations for a hostage deal confirmed to i24NEWS on Friday that some progress has been made in talks, currently taking place with Egypt, including the exchange of draft proposals. However, it remains unclear whether Hamas will ultimately accept the emerging framework. According to the source, discussions are presently focused on reaching a cohesive outline with Cairo.
A delegation of senior Hamas officials is expected to arrive in Cairo tomorrow. While there is still no finalized draft, even Arab sources acknowledge revisions to Egypt’s original proposal, reportedly including a degree of flexibility in the number of hostages Hamas is willing to release.
The source noted that Hamas’ latest proposal to release five living hostages is unacceptable to Israel, which continues to adhere to the “Witkoff framework.” At the core of this framework is the release of a significant number of hostages, alongside a prolonged ceasefire period—Israel insists on 40 days, while Hamas is demanding more. The plan avoids intermittent pauses or distractions, aiming instead for uninterrupted discussions on post-war arrangements.
As previously reported, Israel is also demanding comprehensive medical and nutritional reports on all living hostages as an early condition of the deal.
“For now,” the source told i24NEWS, “Hamas is still putting up obstacles. We are not at the point of a done deal.” Israeli officials emphasize that sustained military and logistical pressure on Hamas is yielding results, pointing to Hamas’ shift from offering one hostage to five in its most recent agreement.
Negotiators also assert that Israel’s demands are fully backed by the United States. Ultimately, Israeli officials are adamant: no negotiations on the “day after” will take place until the hostage issue is resolved—a message directed not only at Hamas, but also at mediators.
The post Some Progress in Hostage Talks But Major Issues Remain, Source tells i24NEWS first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump’s Envoy Witkoff Meets with Putin in Russia
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech during a session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. Photo: Reuters/Maxim Shemetov
i24 News – Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff met for talks in St. Petersburg on Friday.
Witkoff flew to Russia on Friday morning for talks with President Vladimir Putin about the search for a peace deal on Ukraine, the Kremlin said, saying the two men might also discuss a Trump-Putin meeting.
Witkoff has emerged as a key figure in the on-off rapprochement between Moscow and Washington amid talk on the Russian side of potential joint investments in the Arctic and in Russian rare earth minerals.
Putin was also in St Petersburg on Friday to hold what the Kremlin called an “extraordinarily important” meeting about the development of the Russian Navy, which is in the throes of a major modernization and expansion drive.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov played down the planned Witkoff-Putin meeting, telling Russian state media the US envoy’s visit would not be “momentous” and that no breakthroughs were expected.
The meeting will be their third this year and comes at a time when US tensions with Iran and China – two countries with which Russia has close ties – are severely strained over Tehran’s nuclear program and a burgeoning trade war with Beijing.
Witkoff is due in Oman on Saturday for talks with Iran over its nuclear program after Trump threatened Tehran with military action if it does not agree to a deal. Moscow has repeatedly offered its help in trying to clinch a diplomatic settlement.
Putin and Trump have spoken by phone but have yet to meet face-to-face since the US leader returned to the White House in January for a second four-year term.
Trump, who has shown signs of losing patience, has spoken of imposing secondary sanctions on countries that buy Russian oil if he feels Moscow is dragging its feet on a Ukrainian deal.
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Iran, US End High-Level Talks in Oman, Agree to Resume ‘Next Week’, Tehran Says
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Iran and the US held talks in Oman on Saturday and agreed to reconvene next week, the Iranian side said, a dialogue meant to address Tehran’s escalating nuclear program with President Donald Trump threatening military action if there is no deal.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi posted on his Telegram channel that his delegation had a brief encounter with its US counterpart, headed by Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, after they exited the indirect talks mediated by Oman.
“After the end of more than 2-1/2 hours of indirect talks, the heads of the Iranian and American delegations spoke for a few minutes in the presence of the Omani foreign minister as they left the talks,” Araqchi said.
He said the talks – a first between Iran and a Trump administration, including his first term in 2017-21 – took place in a “productive and positive atmosphere.”
“Both sides have agreed to continue the talks next week,” Araqchi wrote, without elaborating about the venue and date.
There was no immediate US comment on the talks.
Underlining the profound rift between the US and Iran, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei earlier said on X that each delegation had its separate room and would exchange messages via Oman’s foreign minister.
“The current focus of the talks will be de-escalating regional tensions, prisoner exchanges and limited agreements to ease sanctions (against Iran) in exchange for controlling Iran’s nuclear program,” an Omani source told Reuters. Baghaei denied this account but did not specify what was false.
Oman has long been an intermediary between Western powers and Iran, having brokered the release of several foreign citizens and dual nationals held by the Islamic Republic.
Tehran approached the talks warily, skeptical they could yield a deal and suspicious of Trump, who has repeatedly threatened to bomb Iran if it does not halt its accelerating uranium enrichment program – regarded by the West as a possible pathway to nuclear weapons.
While each side has talked up the chances of some progress, they remain far apart on a dispute that has rumbled on for more than two decades. Iran has long denied seeking nuclear weapons capability, but Western countries and Israel believe it is covertly trying to develop the means to build an atomic bomb.
Saturday’s exchanges appeared indirect, as Iran had wanted, rather than face-to-face, as Trump had demanded.
“This is a beginning. So it is normal at this stage for the two sides to present to each other their fundamental positions through the Omani intermediary,” Baghaei said.
Signs of progress could help cool tensions in a region aflame since 2023 with wars in Gaza and Lebanon, missile fire between Iran and Israel, Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping and the overthrow of the government in Syria.
HIGH STAKES
However, failure would aggravate fears of a wider conflagration across a region that exports much of the world’s oil. Tehran has cautioned neighboring countries that have US bases that they would face “severe consequences” if they were involved in any US military attack on Iran.
“There is a chance for initial understanding on further negotiations if the other party (U.S.) enters the talks with an equal stance,” Araqchi told Iranian TV.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on key state matters, has given Araqchi “full authority” for the talks, an Iranian official told Reuters.
Iran has ruled out negotiating its defense capabilities such as its ballistic missile program.
Western nations say Iran’s enrichment of uranium, a nuclear fuel source, has gone far beyond the requirements of a civilian energy program and has produced stocks at a level of fissile purity close to those required in warheads.
Trump, who has restored a “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran since February, ditched a 2015 nuclear pact between Iran and six world powers in 2018 during his first term and reimposed crippling sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Since then, Iran’s nuclear program has leaped forward, including by enriching uranium to 60% fissile purity, a technical step from the levels needed for a bomb.
Israel, Washington’s closest Middle East ally, regards Iran’s nuclear program as an existential threat and has long threatened to attack Iran if diplomacy fails to curb its nuclear ambitions.
Tehran’s influence throughout the Middle East has been severely weakened over the past 18 months, with its regional allies – known as the “Axis of Resistance” – either dismantled or badly damaged since the start of the Hamas-Israel war in Gaza and the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria in December.
The post Iran, US End High-Level Talks in Oman, Agree to Resume ‘Next Week’, Tehran Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.