Thousands of protesters filled the plaza outside the historic Town Hall building in Sydney, Australia, on Monday night. As they started chanting and waving flags, they settled into the familiar rhythms of rallies expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people and protesting Israel’s actions in Gaza.
But things took a turn a couple of hours later, when some protesters tried to march north toward the Harbour Bridge. A line of police officers wearing body armor — acting on expanded powers — started pushing them back.
People were shoved, charged, pepper-sprayed and thrown to the ground. Two officers who had a man in frayed jean shorts pinned to the ground repeatedly punched him in the head and his side. A mother rushed her family away, wiping away tears, her eyes bloodshot.
The crackdown was indicative of the uncharted territory that Australia finds itself in the aftermath of the Bondi Beach shooting. To many protesters, the skirmishes felt unprecedented in their country, reminiscent more of police crackdowns they had seen on television taking place in the United States. Some said it was a sign of diminished rights and freedoms.
The authorities arrested 27 people and charged nine of them, ranging in age from 19 to 67, for resisting or assaulting the police.
Tensions had already been simmering heading into Monday night. President Isaac Herzog Israel had arrived in Sydney, as part of a four-day trip, to mourn the deaths of 15 people killed at a Hanukkah celebration in December. They were shot by two gunmen who the authorities have said were acting on Islamic State’s ideology to target Jews.
The authorities deemed the shooting a terrorist attack. State and federal leaders rushed to pass new laws giving law-enforcement agencies the power to clamp down on protests and criminalize certain types of speech they said was necessary to address a rise in antisemitism that led up to the deadly attack.
Mr. Herzog was invited by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia, who said the Israeli leader was going to support the country’s Jewish community. (After the Bondi killings, some Australian Jews said that Mr. Albanese had not done enough to address the threats of antisemitism.)
For critics, Mr. Herzog’s trip amounted to condoning Israel’s actions in Gaza in the aftermath of the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. They pointed to Mr. Herzog’s statement that “it is an entire nation out there that is responsible” for the Oct. 7 attacks, seemingly justifying the killing of civilians in retaliation.
Lara Sherrie, a 47-year-old piano teacher, joined Monday’s protest with her 18-year-old daughter, carrying a sign that read “Peaceful Protest Democratic Cornerstone.”
She said she had not participated in previous protests over Gaza but felt compelled to do so after the Bondi attack because she felt civil liberties in Australia were under threat.
“I’m watching what’s happening in the U.S., and I don’t want us to go down that road,” she said. “I think the right to protest is fundamental to a functioning democracy, it concerns me that that’s being eroded.”
Monday’s protest came after the authorities in New South Wales state, which encompasses Sydney, declared Mr. Herzog’s visit a “major event,” giving police extra authority and powers that had typically been used to manage crowds on occasions like large sporting events or concerts.
The Palestine Action Group, which has organized many of the large-scale protests in Australia against the war in Gaza, had petitioned a judge to overturn that declaration. But it lost that bid about an hour before the protest was scheduled to begin.
On Tuesday, Chris Minns, the premier of New South Wales, defended the police’s actions. He said the crackdown was necessary to keep Sydney residents safe — including thousands who had gathered to attend an event with Mr. Herzog nearby — in circumstances that had become a “tinder box.”
“It was a combustible situation that needed to be contained,” he said.
Frank Bongiorno, a historian and a professor at the University of Canberra, said laws that were “implemented in a panic” after the Bondi attack were restrictive and had set the stage for the clashes on Monday.
“Minns has repeatedly spoken of the right to protest as highly conditional, with himself calling the shots,” he said. “It’s the government determining when protest is legitimate, what kind of protest is allowed.”
Alex Ryvchin, co-chief of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry said it was inevitable that civil liberties would be curtailed in the aftermath of a terrorist attack, like the one in Bondi, and that the extremists behind the attack were to blame.
The visit of Mr. Herzog, who holds a largely ceremonial role in Israel, was a big comfort to the community in mourning, he said.
“When you get targeted in such a brutal way, you want your own, you want people who have experienced antisemitism, people who know exactly what we’re going through and have the somber experience of burying the dead,” Mr. Ryvchin said.
Another Jewish group, the progressive Jewish Council of Australia, last month said that Mr. Herzog’s presence “would fuel the flames of division” in Australia and “rightly spark mass protests,” given the widespread outrage over Palestinian deaths and Israeli actions in Gaza.
“People are just protesting for peace and against genocide, and they’re conflating that with shooting kids” at Bondi Beach, said Daniel Alcaide, 42, who was at the rally on Monday and said he grew up identifying as a Zionist with a father who is Jewish. “They really tried to quell the voices of a lot of Australians after Bondi.”
Israel has denied it committed genocide in Gaza.
Josh Lee, an organizer with the Palestine Action Group, said that the police response Monday night seemed to echo recent high-profile crackdown on dissent in the United States.
“Chris Minns is trying to bring, seemingly, a bit of Donald Trump’s America to Sydney,” he said. “That cannot be allowed to happen.”
Toya Shears, 70, who attended the protest with her husband, Laurie, 76, said she was concerned the violence of Monday would be used by the authorities to further restrict people’s right to protest. A retired nurse and airline safety instructor, she said she planned to keep taking to the streets to assert her rights.
“I will go because I am the custodian of our democracy, I have the privilege to do that,” she said. “If not I, then who?”
Victoria Kim is the Australia correspondent for The New York Times, based in Sydney, covering Australia, New Zealand and the broader Pacific region.
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