Car in New South Wales, Australia graffitied with antisemitic message. Photo: Screenshot

Australian police announced on Wednesday that they foiled a potential mass-casualty antisemitic terrorist attack after discovering a caravan in a suburb of Sydney filled with explosives and material containing details about Jewish targets.

The announcement came amid a wave of antisemitic incidents, including arson and graffiti, in Australia recent months that has alarmed the country’s Jewish community.

Law enforcement officials said police discovered a list of Jewish targets and a cache of Powergel, a mining explosive, in a trailer located in the outer suburb of Dural on Jan. 19.

According to New South Wales state Deputy Police Commissioner David Hudson, there were enough explosives to create a bomb with a blast zone of around 40 meters, or 130 feet.

“This is certainly an escalation,” Hudson said in a press conference, commenting on the recent spate of antisemitic crimes in the greater Sydney area, where businesses and vehicles have been torched and buildings vandalized with graffiti.

“The use of explosives … have the potential to cause a great deal of damage,” he added.

Hudson also confirmed that several suspects unrelated to the explosives had been arrested and that the Jewish community would be informed about the potential targets.

Chris Minns, the premier of New South Wales, referred to the incident as “terrorism,” while confirming that counterterrorism authorities are also investigating the discovery of the explosives.

“This is the discovery of a potential mass casualty event,” he said. “This would strike terror into the community, particularly the Jewish community, and it must be met with the full resources of the government.”

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.

In the past two months alone, at least half a dozen incidents were reported in Sydney.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar condemned the latest plot as “intolerable” in a post on the X social media platform.

“The epidemic of antisemitism is spreading in Australia almost unchecked,” he said. “We expect the Australian government to do more to stop this disease!”

The attempted antisemitic terror attack at a synagogue in Sydney is intolerable. This joins a long list of antisemitic attacks in Australia, including setting fire to a childcare center in Sydney, firebombing a synagogue in Melbourne, and many other antisemitic attacks.
The…

— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) January 29, 2025

Last week, a child care center in Sydney was set alight and antisemitic graffiti was sprayed on the wall. Located near a Jewish school and synagogue in the city’s eastern section, the center suffered extensive damage, though no injuries were reported.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described the attack as “a vicious crime.”

That incident followed several recent cases of antisemitic vandalism targeting cars, homes, and synagogues.

Amid upcoming national elections to be held by mid-May, antisemitism has become a key issue, with Albanese facing criticism from the opposition for being “weak” in addressing hate crimes against Jews.

Last month, arsonists set fire to a synagogue in Melbourne, injuring one person and causing significant damage to the building.

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.

Amid the onslaught, law enforcement in Australia has started an investigation into the origins behind the spree of recent antisemitic crimes, announcing they suspect individuals outside the country have coordinated the campaign of hate.