The head of the Australian government commission looking into the Bondi Beach terror attack reported Tuesday that witnesses who testified before the commission were facing an onslaught of online harassment and intimidation.
Virigina Bell warned that those who engage in such behavior could face prosecution and that the police had been contacted about at least one case so far. A former high court judge and head of the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, Bell made her comments ahead of the second day of a second round of public hearings to assess the timeline and circumstances surrounding the December Hanukkah attack in Sydney.
“We have received reports from a number of witnesses concerning a dramatic increase in online hate messages,” she said, adding that at least one of the instances was referred to the Australian Federal Police, Australia’s ABC News reported.
“I want to make it unequivocally clear,” Bell stated. “The intimidation of witnesses assisting a Royal Commission is an extraordinarily serious matter.”
She added that the commission is monitoring, recording and archiving the posts, noting, “We will not tolerate attempts to subvert this inquiry or silence those who have been brave enough to speak.”
Natalie Levy, a volunteer with a local Jewish security group, was among those who testified during the first hearings after the commission asked members of the community to share their “lived Jewish experience” She told the commission, “My daughter sees [s]wastikas etched all around the school; children saying ‘Heil Hitler’ and putting up their arm in a salute,” The Guardian reported.
She added, “I can’t believe that this, in 2026, in this beautiful country, that antisemitism has become so normalized and people are unashamedly being antisemitic and saying the most vile things about Jewish people, Jewish children.”
Speaking about her own experiences, Levy said, “I’ve been called a ‘kike,’ a ‘dirty Jew,’ a ‘dirty Jewish pig,’ a ‘baby killer,’ a ‘baby eater’ and ‘genocidal.’”
Jillian Segal, the Australian government’s special envoy to combat antisemitism, also testified, stating that hatred towards Jews was becoming “almost fashionable.”
During the Dec. 14 attack, 15 people were killed — including Chabad emissary Rabbi Eli Schlanger and a 10-year-old girl — and dozens were injured after two heavily armed men opened fire on a crowd of hundreds attending a gathering known as “Chanukah by the Sea.”
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