Senior Israeli intelligence officials told Fox News Digital on Monday that Israel warned Australia about a growing threat to Jewish communities from “Iran-directed terror activity” months before two terrorist gunmen opened fire on the Bondi Beach Hanukkah festival last weekend, killing 15 people.
According to “a senior Israeli intelligence official who spoke on background,” Israel’s foreign intelligence service gave “concrete warnings” to Australian authorities about Iran coordinating “efforts to build terror networks with the intent of harming Jewish targets.”
“We stopped a few ticking bombs. The target was on people’s heads,” the Israeli official said, adding that none of the concrete warnings specifically mentioned Bondi Beach.
“The official said Israeli intelligence identified Iranian guidance and coordination, including operatives allegedly possessing weapons and operating ‘in the center of Jewish communities,’ while remaining undetected by local authorities,” Fox News Digital reported.
“The Israeli intelligence assessments align with warnings from a senior foreign diplomatic source, who described the current threat environment as being driven by a global contagion effect, in which extremist networks worldwide amplify and celebrate attacks, encouraging others to replicate them,” the report added.
The Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) linked Iran to at least two arson attacks late last year, which prompted Australia to expel the Iranian ambassador in August 2025.
ASIO said Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, used criminals, gangsters, and other “cut-outs” to do its dirty work, creating a “complex web of proxies to hide its involvement” in an escalating string of antisemitic incidents following the Hamas atrocities of October 7, 2023.
The Jerusalem Post reported on Monday that Israeli intelligence has also considered the possibility of Islamic State officials hiding in Syria having a hand in the Bondi Beach slaughter.
Police reportedly found homemade ISIS flags in the vehicle used by the father-and-son attackers. The local police commissioner described the massacre as a “terrorist attack inspired by Islamic State.”
Whether the attack is linked to Iran or ISIS, the Jerusalem Post noted that Israeli counter-terrorism officials have been considering “kinetic responses to terror attacks against Jews and Israelis abroad,” and senior U.S. officials have indicated they would support a counterstrike by Israel.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry denounced the “violent attack against civilians in Sydney, Australia” on Sunday, declaring that “terror violence and mass killing shall be condemned, wherever they’re committed, as unlawful and criminal.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry denounced Iran’s statement as insincere and “deceptive.”
“Iran has carried out deadly terrorist attacks against Israelis and Jews in the past and constantly seeks to murder Israelis and Jews around the world,” noted Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein.
The Bondi Beach attackers have been identified as 50-year-old Sajid Akram and his 24-year-old son Naveed Akram. The elder Akram was killed at the scene of the attack, while his son is in custody. The two were able to kill 15 unarmed Hanukkah celebrants with their rifles, including a ten-year-old girl.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Sunday that the younger Akram has been on the ASIO’s radar since 2019. Australia’s ABC News reported that Naveed Akram was scrutinized for having close ties to a Sydney-based ISIS cell.
The cell’s plans to carry out a terror attack were thwarted and its leader, Isaac El Matari, was jailed. ASIO believed Naveed Akram was “closely connected” to Matari, but after six months of study, the agency concluded he was not an “imminent threat.”
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