{"id":15337,"date":"2026-02-09T05:50:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T05:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/israeli-president-says-we-shall-overcome-this-evil-at-sydneys-bondi-beach\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T05:50:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T05:50:14","slug":"israeli-president-says-we-shall-overcome-this-evil-at-sydneys-bondi-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/israeli-president-says-we-shall-overcome-this-evil-at-sydneys-bondi-beach\/","title":{"rendered":"Israeli president says &#8216;we shall overcome this evil&#8217; at Sydney&#8217;s Bondi Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Israel&rsquo;s President Isaac Herzog said Monday people of all faiths will &ldquo;overcome this evil&rdquo; as he laid a wreath to commemorate victims of a shooting that killed 15 people at a Jewish festival on Sydney&rsquo;s Bondi Beach.<\/p>\n<p>The head of state paid homage under rain and gray skies to those killed in the December 14 attack as he embarked on a tightly secured, four-day visit to console the Jewish Australian community.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The bonds between good people of all faiths and all nations will continue to hold strong in the face of terror, violence and hatred,&rdquo; he said in a ceremony outside the beachside Bondi Pavilion. &ldquo;We shall overcome this evil together.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Herzog said he had laid two stones from Jerusalem at Bondi Beach &ldquo;in sacred memory of the victims&rdquo;.<\/p>\n<p>He welcomed &ldquo;positive steps&rdquo; to fight antisemitism by the Australian government, which has introduced tougher gun and hate crime laws since the attack.<\/p>\n<p>But the Israeli president told reporters that he shared people&rsquo;s frustrations about a rise in antisemitism &ldquo;all over the world&rdquo;.<\/p>\n<div class=\"internal-linking-related-contents\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/12-weeks-jail-for-school-it-support-technician-who-took-upskirt-videos-of-teachers\/\" class=\"template-1\"><span class=\"cta\">News :<\/span><span class=\"postTitle\">&lt;div&gt;12 weeks' jail for school IT support technician who took upskirt videos of teachers&lt;\/div&gt;<\/span><\/a><\/div><p>Among the victims of the Bondi Beach shooting were an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor, a couple who confronted one of the gunmen, and a 10-year-old girl, Matilda, who was described at her funeral as a &ldquo;ray of sunshine&rdquo;.<\/p>\n<p>Alleged Bondi Beach shooter Sajid Akram, 50, was shot and killed by police during the attack. An Indian national, he entered Australia on a visa in 1998.<\/p>\n<p>His 24-year-old son Naveed, an Australian-born citizen who remains in prison, has been charged with terrorism and 15 murders.<\/p>\n<p>Pro-Palestinian activists have called for rallies against Herzog&rsquo;s visit, protesting Israel&rsquo;s alleged &ldquo;genocide&rdquo; in Gaza and demanding Herzog&rsquo;s arrest for comments that allegedly incited genocide.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I have come here in good will,&rdquo; Herzog said. &ldquo;These demonstrations, in most cases, what you hear and see comes to undermine and delegitimize our right &mdash; my nation&rsquo;s right, the nation which I am the head of state of &mdash; of its mere existence.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Prime Minister Anthony Albanese urged people to be respectful of the reason for Herzog&rsquo;s visit, saying he would join the president to visit the families of those killed at Bondi Beach.<\/p>\n<div class=\"internal-linking-related-contents\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/migrant-acquitted-in-first-trial-over-us-border-military-zones\/\" class=\"template-1\"><span class=\"cta\">News :<\/span><span class=\"postTitle\">Migrant acquitted in first trial over US border military zones<\/span><\/a><\/div><p>&ldquo;In Australia, I think people want innocent lives to be protected, whether it be Israeli or Palestinian, but they want something else as well &mdash; they don&rsquo;t want conflict brought here,&rdquo; he told reporters ahead of the visit.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities have promised an &ldquo;extremely large&rdquo; police deployment for a pro-Palestinian rally that organisers have called in Sydney&rsquo;s city centre.<\/p>\n<p>Police say protesters have so far rejected their request to move the evening rally from the city&rsquo;s Town Hall to a nearby park because of concerns about the venue&rsquo;s size.<\/p>\n<p>Local media say the rally&rsquo;s organizers have also launched a legal appeal against the state government&rsquo;s declaration that Herzog&rsquo;s Sydney visit is a &ldquo;major event&rdquo;, which gives police greater powers to control demonstrations.<\/p>\n<p>The U.N.&rsquo;s Independent International Commission of Inquiry found last year that Herzog was liable for prosecution for inciting genocide after he said all Palestinians &mdash; &ldquo;an entire nation&rdquo; &mdash; were responsible for the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Israel has &ldquo;categorically&rdquo; rejected the inquiry&rsquo;s report, describing it as &ldquo;distorted and false&rdquo; and calling for the body&rsquo;s abolition.<\/p>\n<p>Many Jewish Australians have welcomed Herzog&rsquo;s trip.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;His visit will lift the spirits of a pained community,&rdquo; said Alex Ryvchin, co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the community&rsquo;s peak body.<\/p>\n<p>But some in the community disagreed, with the progressive Jewish Council of Australia saying he is not welcome because of his alleged role in the &ldquo;ongoing destruction of Gaza&rdquo;.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"small-caps text-small text-serif\" itemprop=\"copyrightHolder\">&copy;  2026 AFP<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<p><sub><\/sub><\/p>\n<div>Israeli president says &lsquo;we shall overcome this evil&rsquo; at Sydney&rsquo;s Bondi Beach<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Israel&rsquo;s President Isaac Herzog said Monday people of all faiths will &ldquo;overcome this evil&rdquo; as he laid a wreath to commemorate victims of a shooting that killed 15 people at a Jewish festival on Sydney&rsquo;s Bondi Beach. The head of state paid homage under rain and gray skies to those killed in the December 14&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-wrap\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/israeli-president-says-we-shall-overcome-this-evil-at-sydneys-bondi-beach\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;Israeli president says &#8216;we shall overcome this evil&#8217; at Sydney&#8217;s Bondi Beach&rdquo;<\/span> &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15338,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}