Mask-wearing arsonists set a synagogue ablaze before dawn on Friday in the Australian city of Melbourne, police said, as the attack was widely condemned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fire broke out at 4:10 am (1710 GMT Thursday) in the Adass Israel Synagogue when some congregants were already inside, police said, gutting much of the building in the southeast Melbourne suburb of Ripponlea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No serious injuries were reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A witness entering the synagogue for morning prayers saw “two individuals wearing masks”, according to Detective Inspector Chris Murray of the Victorian police arson and explosive squad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“They appeared to be spreading an accelerant of some type in the premises,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The synagogue was “engulfed in flames”, he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We believe it was deliberate. We believe it has been targeted. What we don’t know is why.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Police will increase patrols as they hunt for the arsonists, who were wearing dark clothing, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Detectives would be looking at CCTV footage and interviewing any witnesses, Murray said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Television images showed firefighters hosing down the embers through the blackened door of the single-storey building, which has a grey concrete facade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A board member of the synagogue, Benjamin Klein, said a few congregants were sitting and praying inside when the fire started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“They heard loud banging,” Klein told AFP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Liquid was poured inside the synagogue and set alight, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“If this had happened an hour later, there would have been hundreds of people inside,” Klein said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The congregants “ran out the back of the synagogue. One man who ran out — his hand got burnt,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The fire was extensive,” he told AFP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Inside is completely gutted.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Books and furniture were destroyed, he said, vowing that the community would “rebuild”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Members of the congregation formed a human chain to remove religious items from the damaged synagogue, including Torah scrolls — one of which was brought to Australia from Germany in World War II, the Age newspaper reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Klein said the synagogue had increased security over the past 12 months amid safety concerns, without giving further details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1995, the synagogue was damaged by a deliberately lit fire, with walls and Torah scrolls burned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Klein, who was a child at the time, said he remembered standing inside the synagogue with his grandfather, who he said was a Holocaust survivor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese “unequivocally” condemned the fire and said federal police would help the state to investigate it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This violence and intimidation and destruction at a place of worship is an outrage,” Albanese said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This attack has risked lives and is clearly aimed at creating fear in the community.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The prime minister said he had “zero tolerance” for anti-Semitism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It has absolutely no place in Australia.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said he spoke with Albanese on Friday and expressed his “firm condemnation of the horrific arson attack”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He added that “the increasingly serious antisemitic attacks on the Jewish community required firm and strong action”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the “heinous act cannot be separated from the anti-Israel sentiment emanating from the Australian Labor government”, citing Canberra’s decision to vote for a UN resolution demanding the end of Israel’s “unlawful” occupation of Palestinian territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The war in Gaza has sparked protests from supporters of Israel and Palestinians in cities around Australia, as in much of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Daniel Aghion said the community had been living in fear of such an incident since the start of the war in Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This for us is just evidence of that fear,” he told reporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This is something that is the greatest manifestation of what we have been seeing and hearing in terms of threatening e-mails, threatening social media, threatening letters and all sorts of other material.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack which triggered the Gaza war resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 44,580 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mask-wearing arsonists set a synagogue ablaze before dawn on Friday in the Australian city of Melbourne, police said, as the attack was widely condemned. The fire broke out at 4:10 am (1710 GMT Thursday) in the Adass Israel Synagogue when some congregants were already inside, police said, gutting much of the building in the southeast […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":255,"featured_media":79212,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106,120],"tags":[12410,11968,12916],"class_list":["post-79228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia","category-melbourne-en","tag-australie-en","tag-melbourne-2","tag-synagogue-2"],"yoast_head":"\n