The Times of Israel is liveblogging Sunday’s events as they happen.
Antisemitism building up, needs to stop, Sydney official says after synagogue attack
David Ossip, president of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, says he welcomes extra resources promised by the government to probe recent incidents of antisemitism, indicating that security will be stepped up.
“The New South Wales government has also provided us with additional funding to enhance Jewish communal security,” Ossip says in a statement.
Reacting to a graffiti attack on a synagogue in the Sydney suburb of Newton on Saturday, Inner West mayor Darcy Byrne posts a video in which he says the building was also the subject of an attempted firebombing, expressing solidarity with the Jewish community “at such a difficult time.”
We never thought we'd see the day when there are attempts to firebomb places of worship in our multicultural, multi-faith local community.
It’s shocking and appalling.
This antisemitism is growing in our community and we must be strong in opposing it and stamping it out.
— Darcy Byrne (@MayorDarcy) January 11, 2025
“This antisemitism has been building up for some time now, there’s been increasing reports across the last year and it needs to stop,” he adds.
Police had earlier said they were investigating a suspected arson attempt at the synagogue at the same time as the antisemitic vandalism.
“We as a community need to stand strongly to say we oppose antisemitism and stand in solidarity with the Jewish community at this time,” he adds.
The Inner West includes neighborhoods just to the west of central Sydney, including Marrickville, where another suspected incident of antisemitic vandalism occurred over the weekend.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Sydney police say synagogue vandals tried to set fire as counterterror cops take over probe
Police in Australia’s New South Wales say vandals who spray painted antisemitic graffiti on a Sydney synagogue also attempted to set the house of worship on fire.
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns says the attack marks an escalation in antisemitic crime in the state, coming amid an outbreak of attacks on Jewish homes and synagogues in recent weeks, including several attacks over the weekend.
“This is an escalation in anti-Semitic crime in New South Wales. Police and the government remain very concerned that an accelerant may have been used,” Minns tells a televised media conference alongside state police commissioner Karen Webb.
“In the last 24 hours, these matters have now been taken over by counter-terrorism command,” Webb says.
Aside from the incident on the synagogue in Newton, a house in Sydney’s east, a hub of the city’s Jewish community, was also daubed with antisemitic graffiti, police said on Saturday, adding they were also probing offensive comments on a street poster in the suburb of Marrickville.
Police ask for the public’s help in identifying two suspects in the graffiti and arson attacks, releasing blurry stills from CCTV footage of men in hoodies on a scooter and a bike.
On Friday, a special police task force was set up to investigate an attack on the Southern Sydney Synagogue in the suburb of Allawah in the early hours of Friday morning.
Settler leaders say they will attend Trump inauguration after receiving invite
The Yesha settlement council says it will send an official delegation to the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump in Washington next week after receiving an invitation, as it seeks to hit the ground running with the potentially settlement-friendly leader.
The umbrella group representing Israel’s more than 120 West Bank settlements makes the announcement on Facebook, where it also asks supporters to sign a Hebrew-language letter it says it intends to deliver to the administration thanking Trump for “redeeming” Jerusalem and recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
According to Israel National News, the delegation will include Binyamin Regional Council head Israel Gantz, who heads Yesha; Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan, and Yesha foreign affairs chief Eliana Passentin, a native Californian, among others.
“The invitation we received from the government is an expression of the values Israel and the settlement movement share with the US as a light of Biblical values,” Gantz says in a statement carried by the outlet, which has close ties to the settler movement
Yesha has long administered its own foreign policy wing independent of the Israeli government, though they often work in concert. The group has close ties with likely incoming US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee.
In 2017, the group sent a lower-level delegation to Trump’s first inauguration, led by former Efrat mayor Oded Revivi, who was the group’s foreign envoy. At the time, he told the Associated Press that the group had been invited by a member of Trump’s “first circle” of advisers, but refused to name the person.
Agencies contributed to this report.
Special prosecutor who tried to put Trump on trial resigns from Justice Department
Special counsel Jack Smith has resigned from the US Justice Department after submitting his investigative report on President-elect Donald Trump, an expected move that comes amid legal wrangling over how much of that document can be made public in the days ahead.
The department discloses Smith’s departure in a court filing, saying he had resigned one day earlier. The resignation, 10 days before Trump is inaugurated, follows the conclusion of two unsuccessful criminal prosecutions against Trump that were withdrawn following Trump’s White House win in November.
Smith’s departure is another marker of the collapse of the criminal cases against Trump, which could end without any legal consequences for the incoming president and sparked a backlash that helped fuel his political comeback.
Trump, who has frequently called Smith “deranged,” had said he would fire him immediately upon taking office on Jan. 20, and has suggested that he may pursue retribution against Smith and others who investigated him once he returns to office.
At issue now is the fate of a two-volume report that Smith and his team had prepared about their twin investigations into Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of his 2020 election and his hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
The Justice Department had been expected to make the document public in the final days of the Biden administration, but the Trump-appointed judge who presided over the classified documents case granted a defense request to at least temporarily halt its release. Two of Trump’s co-defendants in that case, Trump valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira, had argued that the release of the report would be unfairly prejudicial, an argument that the Trump legal team joined in.
Palestinians report settler attack on herders near Bethlehem
A Palestinian official says dozens of settlers attacked a Palestinian community near Bethlehem, burning tents and attacking sheepherders, the third apparent attack in hours.
Ahmed Ghazal, the local Fatah party chief for the village of Kisan, tells the official Palestinian news agency Wafa that some 30 settlers were involved in the attack.
There are no details on whether the injured required hospitalization.
There is no comment from either the Israel Defense Forces or Israel Police.
Earlier, Palestinians reported settler attacks on the town of Yatma, south of Nablus, and Turmmus Ayya, near Ramallah, in what appear to be a rash of revenge actions following a deadly terror attack on Israeli motorists passing through a Palestinian town last week.
IDF says drone strike targeted 3 suspects in Lebanon near the border
Earlier this evening, the IDF says it carried out a drone strike against three suspects who were spotted on the Lebanese side of Mount Dov, close to the Israeli border.
The three were apparently killed in the strike.
It is unclear if the suspects were armed, or what their intentions were.