An Australian royal commission investigating December’s antisemitic shooting at Bondi Beach has raised serious concerns about the conduct of New South Wales Police.
A newly released interim report, published on Thursday, reveals that the Jewish community issued clear and specific warnings about a credible threat to event participants only days before the attack.
The report cited an email from a Jewish security group to local police, explicitly stating that the security alert for the Jewish community in New South Wales had been assessed as “HIGH.
“A terrorist attack against the NSW Jewish Community is likely, and there is a high level of antisemitic vilification,” the Community Security Group (CSG) warned.
Despite this direct alert, police said they could not assign dedicated on-site officers to secure the event, instead offering only periodic “mobile patrols” to “check in and monitor the event.”
Beyond exposing this severe failure, the commission called for sweeping structural reforms to Australia’s security establishment, including overhauling counterterrorism units, with a focus on better coordination between agencies, improved integration of task forces, and enhanced access to intelligence and real-time information sharing.
The report also urged police to seriously consider significantly strengthening security at Jewish events with a public profile, in order to prevent similar attacks in the future.
(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)
