A special unit of Australia’s counterterroism police detained seven men in Sydney on Thursday on suspicion of planning a “violent act,” days after a mass shooting left 15 people dead at a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach.
The authorities said they had not identified any connection between the detentions and the attack in Bondi “at this point in time,” according to a statement by the New South Wales police. Officials have classified the attack on Sunday, the worst mass shooting in Australia in nearly three decades, as a terrorist act.
As part of the detentions, the Tactical Operations Unit of the New South Wales police intercepted two cars in the southwest Sydney neighborhood of Liverpool. The seven men taken into custody are now “assisting police with their inquiries,” the statement said.
Local news outlets reported that the cars had been on their way to Bondi Beach and had license plates from Victoria, the state bordering New South Wales. The police did not confirm those details to The New York Times, or the reason the authorities believed that a violent act was being planned.
Video footage of the police operation published by The Sydney Morning Herald and Nine News showed heavily armed security forces restraining men with zip ties near a busy shopping center before they were taken into custody.
Information on the identities of the men or whether they were charged was not immediately available.
Australian communities have started to grapple with the aftershocks of the attack in Bondi as funerals for those killed in the mass shooting begin. The responses have been a mix of grief and rage at an attack that people say could have been prevented and at a government they say has not done enough to fight antisemitism.
The authorities have said that the two suspects involved in the Bondi shooting — Naveed Akram, 24, and his father, Sajid Akram, 50, who was shot and killed by the police — appeared to be motivated by antisemitism inspired by the Islamic State.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced new measures against antisemitism, including laws that would “crack down on those who spread hate, division and radicalization.”
Pranav Baskar is an international reporter and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers.
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