A childcare centre in Sydney’s south-east has been set alight and graffitied with an anti-Semitic slogan early on Tuesday morning.
Just before 1am, emergency services were called to the centre in Maroubra, where firefighters extinguished the fire, NSW police said in a statement, noting that the building sustained extensive damage and antisemitic graffiti was found spray-painted on an external wall.
Police also said the building was unoccupied at the time and there were no reports of injuries.
The building is a short distance away from the Maroubra Synagogue on Anzac Parade.
Responding to the incident, NSW premier Chris Minns said he was “very alarmed and concerned” about the incident, along with the wave of similar recent attacks in Sydney. It’s the fifth such incident to occur in the last three months.
Speaking to the childcare centre attack on Sydney radio station 2GB, Minns said: “This is not just malicious damage or random graffiti, as appalling as that would be if it was racially motivated. These are sophisticated attacks.”
“Police are putting resources into it as we speak. They will track down these people.”
Anyone with information, CCTV or dashcam footage have been asked to contact police.
Minns added that such attacks “begin with the incendiary language that’s heard in different parts of Sydney” and foreshadowed new legislation to “criminalise the vilification and hatred of members of our community”.
Also responding to Tuesday’s incident, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese condemned the attack on the Maroubra childcare centre as an “evil hate crime”.
“My government will support NSW police to hunt down the offenders and ensure they face the full force of the law through Operation Avalite,” Albanese said.
Operation Avalite was established to combat anti-Semitism following a series of arson and vandalism attacks, including last week’s attack at Dover Heights in Sydney’s east, where two cars were set alight and a former home of a prominent Jewish Australian was splashed with red paint.
There have also been attacks at synagogues in Melbourne and at Jewish Labor MP Josh Burns’ electorate office.
The taskforce for Operation Avalite is made up of counterterrorism investigators and focuses on threats, violence and hatred directed towards the Australian Jewish community and parliamentarians.