Shocking scenes as protesters storm a Israeli restaurant in Melbourne - as a Jewish synagogue is torched nearby
The chaotic scenes unfolded at the Israeli-owned Miznon eatery on Hardware Lane, where up to 20 protesters hurled chairs, food, and glassware at the venue while chanting 'death to the IDF'.
Footage shared online showed the breakaway group throwing bollards on their way to the restaurant after a separate protest involving 80 attendees in nearby Swanson Street.
When the masked protesters arrived, diners can be heard screaming as furniture and tables are overturned
Protesters were then seen clashing with dozens of police after they arrived on scene.
One protester was arrested for hindering police and released on summons.
'Several other protestors were spoken to by police and had their identities clarified for the purpose of follow up investigation,' a spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia.
'Victoria Police continued to support the rights of Victorians to protest peacefully but will not tolerate the kind of anti-social and violent behaviour that was witnessed this evening.'
The chaotic scenes shocked diners.
Other restaurants in Hardware Lane were also damaged.
'Then they started getting aggressive, throwing tomatoes, chairs, and glasses. They caused lots of damage to the businesses down here,' a diner told the Herald Sun.
Just half an hour earlier, a synagogue in East Melbourne was set on fire, which police are treating as suspicious.
A man entered the synagogue grounds on Albert Street about 8pm, poured a flammable liquid on the front door, and ignited it before fleeing on foot.
About 20 people inside the synagogue at the time.
No injuries were reported. Firefighters quickly contained the fire to the entrance, which prevented further damage.
Police are working with synagogue members and Jewish community representatives to provide support following the distressing attack.
An arson specialist has been called in to assist in determining the cause, and police are reviewing local CCTV footage as part of their ongoing investigations.
Victoria Police stressed that anti-Semitic and hate-based behaviour would not be tolerated and that both incidents are being treated with the utmost seriousness.
Australian Jewish Democratic Society has condemned both incidents.
'The AJDS utterly and totally condemns the mob action by masked people protesting against the presence of the Miznon restaurant in Melbourne,' it posted online late Friday night.
'Around the same time, there was an attempted arson of the historic Eastern Melbourne Synagogue not far away by masked people. This is an appalling act against the whole Jewish community
'We hope all those responsible are caught and prosecuted.'
Police urge anyone with information, footage or CCTV of either incident to come forward.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Full scale of Joshua Brown's alleged sex offending is laid bare as new details emerge - as male workers are banned from changing nappies
The number of childcare centres in Victoria where alleged paedophile Joshua Brown was employed is set to grow in the following week. The 26-year-old has been charged with more than 70 child sex offences including the sexual penetration of a child and producing child abuse material. He is also charged with recklessly contaminate goods to cause alarm or anxiety, which is understood to refer to the alleged contamination of food with bodily fluids. It was revealed on Friday that there is a new, full list of times and places where Brown worked which is due to be released in the coming days, The Age reported. The latest blow comes as families were rocked on Tuesday by an urgent warning from the Victorian Department of Health and Victoria Police for parents of 1,200 children to have them tested for infectious diseases. It has since been suggested the advised tests were for gonorrhea and chlamydia. It was later suggested parents also have their children tested for syphilis. Brown's is accused of abusing eight children between the ages of two-months-old and five-years-old at the Creative Garden Early Learning Centre Point Cook, where he worked between October 2021 and February 2024. Authorities said the Melbourne childcare worker also worked at more than a dozen other centres across the city between 2017 and 2025. Affinity Education, the national childcare company which employed Brown in at least nine of its centres, provided The Age with a letter from chief executive Tim Hickey. 'The individual was employed as a permanent part-time educator in August 2024 for a newly built centre which opened in November,' he said. 'During that period, they worked or trained across other centres in the network or where the support was needed. 'While this is a common operational practice in the sector, we are now reviewing how these movements are managed through a stronger child safety lens.' Meanwhile provider Inspire Early Learning Journey sent a letter to parents on Friday announcing it had adjusted policies about what male staff would be allowed to do. Chief curriculum and quality officer Eleinna Anderson said they will not be changing nappies or carrying out 'toileting duties', the Herald Sun reported. She maintained they will still play a 'vital role' and help with activities, classroom preparation and cleaning. The provider's staff must refrain from unnecessary physical contact with children including kissing. If offering emotional supporter, they need the child's consent to hug them or hold their hands. The national provider Affinity Education addressed Brown's work at nine of their centres, explaining why he worked at multiple locations in a letter to parents (pictured) Daily Mail Australia exclusively revealed on Friday that at least 30 families have already approached a high-profile law firm in Victoria to seek compensation over the alleged actions of Brown while their children were under his care. Arnold Thomas and Becker Lawyers have confirmed they were contacted by a string of families about potential legal action. Some parents have already approached the media to discuss the horror their families have been through. A Werribee father who spoke out on Thursday, described how his seven-year-old daughter begged medical staff to stop as they administered an STI test. 'My daughter was saying "Daddy, this is really hurting me, make the lady stop",' he told the Herald Sun. 'You could visibly see the pathologist was upset, the receptionists were upset, the doctor was upset. Because they're all parents. It's affected everyone.' All the parents involved have to wait an unknown amount of time to discover whether their children have any STIs. 'It's every bit as bad as you think it's going to be. Every time my phone rings… I get anxiety, every time it rings. It's constantly attached to my hand as we're waiting for that phone call,' he said. Health authorities had to contact more than 2,600 families after Brown was taken into custody in mid-May, where he remains. His Point Cook home was raided by police shortly after an investigation was launched earlier that same month. Police have said he was not known to them before his arrest and he had a valid Working With Children Check, which has since been cancelled. He will next appear at Melbourne Magistrates' Court on September 15. Police discovered evidence of the alleged horrific offending by the childcare worker while investigating 36-year-old Michael Simon Wilson. Wilson, from Hoppers Crossing, was charged with 45 child sex offences on Wednesday, including bestiality, rape and possession of child abuse material, according to court documents. It is understood Brown and Wilson are known to each other, but Wilson's charges are not linked to any childcare centre and involve different alleged victims.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
BREAKING NEWS Young female cop found unresponsive, another injured, after welfare check turned ugly in Bidwill
Two female police officers were allegedly assaulted, with one found unresponsive on the road, while carrying out a welfare check in Sydney 's west. NSW Police responded to reports of an on-duty police officer lying unresponsive on Bunya Road in Bidwill just before 6.30pm on Friday. The officer, a 23-year-old woman attached to Mt Druitt Police Area Command, was treated at the scene by first responders and NSW Ambulance paramedics. She was then transported to Westmead Hospital in a stable condition. A second officer, who is a 22-year-old woman, was also treated at the scene and was taken to Mount Druitt Hospital as a precaution. It is believed that the two female police officers were responding to a mental health incident when the assault occurred. Nine News reported the 22-year-old tried to intervene when her colleague fell unresponsive and used capsicum spray. Two other officers then arrived and arrested a 19-year-old man who was at the scene. He was taken to Mt Druitt Police Station, before being taken to Nepean Hospital. A crime scene has been established and an investigation into the circumstances of the incident has commenced. Inquiries are ongoing.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Wild kangaroo harvests are labelled ‘needlessly cruel' by US lawmakers – but backed by Australian conservationists
The bill, introduced into the US Senate last month, came with plenty of emotive and uncompromising language. 'The mass killing of millions of kangaroos to make commercial products is needless and inhumane,' said the Democratic senator Tammy Duckworth, as she introduced the Kangaroo Protection Act to ban the sale and manufacture of kangaroo products in the US. With the high-profile former Democratic presidential nominee Cory Booker as a co-sponsor, the two senators said Australia's commercial kangaroo harvest was 'unnecessarily cruel' and their proposed ban would protect 'millions of wild kangaroos and their innocent babies who are needlessly killed every year'. Backed by animal rights campaigners, the move is the latest in a string of attempts in recent years in the US Congress to ban kangaroo products. A similar push is ongoing in Europe. Last week the Center for a Humane Economy, which runs the Kangaroos Are Not Shoes campaign, announced British sportswear brand Umbro was the latest to join the likes of Nike, Adidas, Puma and Asics in phasing out the use of so-called 'k-leather' that has most often been used in some of their brand's football boots. But the success of the campaigns, and the ongoing criticism of Australia's regulated kangaroo harvests, hides a complex story and one which, Prof Chris Johnson says, is 'infuriating' for many Australian conservationists and ecologists. 'The public advocacy by opponents has been very effective, but unfortunately it's all wrong, is conceptually muddled and it's not based on knowledge or experience,' says Johnson, a kangaroo expert and professor of wildlife conservation at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage. The Nationals leader and shadow agriculture minister, David Littleproud, accused the governing Labor party of failing to 'dispel misconceptions around the use and overseas imports of kangaroo products'. 'This has allowed animal activists to spread false information that kangaroos are being killed solely for [soccer] cleats. 'It's important to note that without a commercial industry, conservation culling is still needed to occur to manage populations. 'We know kangaroos can breed easily and are not a threatened species. The practical reality of import bans in the US would be detrimental to kangaroo populations in Australia.' The government did not answer questions sent to the agriculture minister, Julie Collins. Since European colonisation, farmers have grown pasture for livestock and added watering holes across Australia's landscape, both of which help kangaroos to survive and, in times of good rainfall, have backed controls and culls of the kangaroo's natural predator – the dingo. Johnson says grazing from abundant kangaroos can take away areas that other native animals such as bandicoots and dunnarts use to hide from introduced predators like cats and foxes. 'Overgrazing can be a serious ecological threat,' he says. 'The harvest protects other native species because it protects vegetation. If the kangaroo program fails, that would be a contributor to increased extinction threat.' Regulated commercial kangaroo harvesting takes place every year in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia. Since 2010, data collated by the Australian government shows that between 1.1 million and 1.7 million kangaroos have been killed annually under the commercial harvest. Harvest quotas are set at about 15% of the estimated kangaroo population, but the data suggests less than a third of the quota is used up each year. Kangaroo harvesting takes place at night, and a national code of practice says the animals should be killed by a bullet to the head. Ben Pearson, Australia and New Zealand country director for World Animal Protection, says this method of killing, coupled with a lack of oversight of both commercial and non-commercial kangaroo culling, which is also done under licence, is a concern. 'In other animal farming industries there is a requirement for humane slaughter which includes stunning before slaughter,' he says. 'With wild harvesting, kangaroos are shot outright and evidence suggests that many are not killed instantaneously, instead being merely wounded and thus suffering from gunshot wounds. Kangaroos that are wounded but escape could suffer over a prolonged period.' Sign up to Clear Air Australia Adam Morton brings you incisive analysis about the politics and impact of the climate crisis after newsletter promotion A 2021 inquiry in the New South Wales parliament on kangaroo welfare found there was a lack of monitoring at the 'point of kill' for both commercial and non-commercial shooting, but the state government supported only two of the 23 recommendations in full. The inquiry heard that kangaroo kills were deeply distressing for some Aboriginal people, and animal rights groups said kangaroos had a right to live freely without human interference. If female kangaroos are shot, harvesters can find young joeys still alive in the mother's pouch. A national code of practice for commercial kangaroo harvesting recommends joeys are killed using blunt force trauma to the back of the head, and suggests using the tray of a utility vehicle as a suitable immovable object. It's a method which Pearson says is 'barbaric'. 'On an ethical level, we are opposed to the killing of kangaroos for non-essential items like football boots, particularly given alternatives exist and are in widespread use,' he says. Neal Finch is a wildlife ecologist and executive officer of the Australian Wild Game Industry Council, which represents kangaroo harvesters. He says the codes of practice of the kind covering kangaroo harvesting do not exist in other jurisdictions. 'It is not that we are inhumane. It is that we are exemplary,' he claims. 'Over 6 million native deer are killed in the USA every year. Over-abundant herbivores need management. The code of practice for shooting kangaroos requires a shot to the brain. Virtually all deer shot in the USA are shot in the chest. 'The reason campaigners can quote how many kangaroos are killed is because we actually publish that information,' he said. Kangaroo numbers are known to boom in times of good rainfall and then crash during droughts – swings that mirror Australia's variable climate. Between 2010 and 2023, official estimates of kangaroo numbers across four states show numbers fell as low as 25 million in 2010 and went as high as 53 million in 2013. Latest figures estimate a kangaroo population of 34 million. 'We either choose to sustainably harvest these kangaroo populations or we will see kangaroos starve in their many thousands during droughts, and habitats will be overgrazed and degraded,' says Prof Euan Ritchie, a wildlife ecologist at Deakin University. 'It's a choice.' As uncomfortable as the thought may be for many, Johnson says that in lean times, many kangaroo deaths may not be as short and sharp as one from a harvester's gun. 'The natural alternatives are being killed by a dingo or dying by starvation,' he says. 'There's less suffering entailed by the harvest than by either of those alternatives.'
