Australian leaders urged calm Tuesday after police clashed with thousands of demonstrators opposing Israeli President Isaac Herzog‘s visit, an confrontation that resulted in 27 arrests and accusations of excessive force from protesters and opposition lawmakers.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he was “devastated” by Monday evening’s violence in central Sydney and called on protesters to express disagreement peacefully rather than through confrontation. “Australians want two things. They don’t want conflict brought here. They want killing to stop, whether it’s Israelis or Palestinians, but they do not want conflict brought here,” Albanese told radio station Triple M on Tuesday. “The causes are not advanced by these sorts of scenes, they are undermined.”
Police used pepper spray and tear gas to disperse crowds gathered near Sydney’s Town Hall after demonstrators attempted to march toward the New South Wales Parliament in defiance of protest restrictions.
Officers arrested 27 people Monday evening, including 10 for allegedly assaulting police and 17 for failing to comply with directions to disperse. By Tuesday, nine people, six men and three women aged 19 to 67, had been formally charged with offences including assaulting or hindering police. Six more will receive court attendance notices for refusing to comply with police directions, according to NSW Police.
Thousands converged on the city center Monday to protest Herzog’s four-day visit to Australia, which Prime Minister Albanese invited following a mass shooting at a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach on December 14 that killed 15 people. Herzog was not present at the protest site; he was addressing Jewish community members at Sydney’s International Convention Centre several kilometers away. Authorities designated Herzog’s visit a major event, triggering rarely invoked police powers including authority to direct crowds to move, restrict entry to designated areas, search vehicles, and order dispersals. A Sydney court Monday dismissed a legal challenge by the Palestine Action Group against those restrictions.
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Television footage showed protesters attempting to push through police barricades as officers forced them back using physical pressure and chemical agents. Some demonstrators were seen lying on the ground while police restrained them. Video appeared to show officers grabbing Muslim men from the pavement as they prayed.
Josh Lees, an organizer with the Palestine Action Group, accused police of launching a “violent attack on protesters.” “The vast majority of people in that crowd, not a small minority, either directly experienced or witnessed all around them sickening acts of police brutality against people who were just trying to disperse,” Lees told reporters Tuesday.
Three Greens party lawmakers, state MPs Sue Higginson, Jenny Leong and Abigail Boyd, appeared alongside Lees at a Tuesday press conference condemning police conduct. Higginson called for the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission to investigate individual acts of police misconduct and broader questions about use of force. Leong demanded an independent investigation into police actions. Higginson said police could no longer be trusted by a large portion of the population following Monday’s events.
NSW Premier Chris Minns defended police Tuesday, saying officers faced an impossible situation after protest organizers refused to comply with a request to stage the demonstration at Hyde Park rather than Town Hall. “We had 7,000 mourners down at the International Convention Centre who were mourning the horrible events of December 14 with the president and the Jewish community,” Minns said. “New South Wales police had to keep protesters and mourners separate. As disturbing as the scenes were last night on the news, they weren’t even worse as a result of thousands of people clashing together on the streets of Sydney.” Lees rejected Minns’ explanation Tuesday, calling it “dishonest” and saying it did not excuse police violence.
NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said what occurred at Town Hall was “simply unacceptable” and that officers “held the line” after protesters moved down George Street at the conclusion of scheduled speeches. “The police did what they needed to do, which was to hold the line and then form and move the protesters back with a view to dispersing them,” Lanyon told reporters Tuesday.
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Before clashes erupted, the crowd stood peacefully and heard speeches from former Australian of the Year Grace Tame, Jewish academic Antony Loewenstein, Amnesty International Australia spokesperson Mohamed Duar, and others.
Protesters held signs reading “War Criminals Not Welcome Here” and “From the river to the sea, Herzog to the ICC,” calling on Albanese to arrest the visiting president. Many accused Herzog of complicity in civilian deaths in Gaza during Israel’s military operations.
A UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry found in September that Herzog, along with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, “incited the commission of genocide” by making statements that could reasonably be interpreted as encouraging Israeli forces to target Palestinians collectively. The inquiry pointed to comments Herzog made less than a week after Hamas militants killed and kidnapped hundreds of Israelis on October 7, 2023, when he said “an entire nation” was responsible for the attack. Herzog has angrily rejected the UN findings and denied blaming all Palestinian people. His office did not respond to requests for comment on the protests.
The Jewish Council of Australia, which opposes Israeli government policies, released an open letter Monday signed by more than 1,000 Jewish Australian academics and community leaders urging Albanese to take back Herzog’s invitation. Herzog began his visit at Bondi Beach on Monday, where he laid a wreath at a memorial for victims of the December attack and met survivors and families of those killed. “Standing here at Bondi, an iconic symbol of Australian life, now scarred by the December 14 massacre, I embrace our Australian Jewish sisters and brothers still reeling from this trauma,” Herzog wrote on social media. “This was also an attack on all Australians. They attacked the values that our democracies treasure, the sanctity of human life, the freedom of religion, tolerance, dignity and respect.”
Albanese had urged Australians to respect the solemn nature of Herzog’s visit, saying the president came “in goodwill” to engage with the Jewish community grieving the Bondi Beach victims. Herzog’s visit continues through Thursday, with planned stops in Melbourne and the national capital Canberra before he returns to Israel.
Australian Federal Police ruled out arresting Herzog despite legal complaints filed by civil society groups and human rights advocates, citing the Israeli president’s diplomatic immunity on civil and criminal matters.
Herzog’s role is largely ceremonial, removed from executive decision-making led by Netanyahu. However, activists argue his statements and position as head of state make him accountable for Israeli policies in Gaza.
