Australia’s Jewish community has been left “reeling” by an arson attack on a synagogue in Melbourne on Friday.

Firefighters were deployed to put out a blaze which erupted inside the Adass Israel Synagogue in a suburb in the south-east of the city in the early hours of Friday morning.

The synagogue was built by survivors of the Holocaust, local politicians said.

The arson marked an escalation in a campaign of attacks on Jewish targets in Australia since the war began between Israel and Hamas last year.

Buildings and vehicles have been vandalised and torched around Australia in attacks that are believed to be fuelled by the conflict in the Middle East.

Witnesses said they saw two men in balaclavas dousing the synagogue with some kind of fuel and then spreading it around with brooms before setting it alight.