Australia police search for two suspects in arson attack on Melbourne synagogue

Australian police say they’re looking for two people suspected of deliberately starting a fire at a Melbourne synagogue that injured one and caused widespread damage.

The fire at the Adass Israel synagogue began early on Friday and police say the suspects were wearing masks.

Victoria state police say a worshiper at the synagogue for morning prayers had seen two people who appeared to be spreading accelerant inside the building before setting it on fire.

“We believe it was deliberate. We believe it has been targeted. What we don’t know is why and we’ll get to the why,” Detective Inspector Chris Murray tells reporters.

“There was some banging on a door with some liquid thrown inside and was lit alight, the few people inside the synagogue ran outside the back door, one of them got burnt,” Adass Israel Synagogue board member Benjamin Klein told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

“The whole place took alight pretty quickly.”

Australia has seen a rise in antisemitic incidents since Hamas’s October 7 onslaught and the ensuing war Israel launched against the terror group in Gaza.