Driver charged with hate crime after ramming truck into Brisbane Synagogue
Australian police investigating incident as criminal, not terror; Jewish groups condemn ‘chilling assault on sacred place of worship’
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleA driver rammed a pickup truck into the Brisbane Synagogue in Queensland, Australia, narrowly missing a person, according to footage released Saturday.
The footage shows a Toyota Hilux backing up into the gate of the Queensland state capital’s largest synagogue, while a person on the other side of the gate moves out of the way.
Police located the vehicle a short while later and arrested a 32-year-old man, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.
The suspect was charged with willful damage, serious vilification or hate crime, dangerous operation of a vehicle, and drug offenses, according to the ABC report.
Authorities are treating the incident as criminal, and not terror, the broadcaster said. Police believe that the man did not have any intention of entering the synagogue, the report added.
Australia’s Anti-Defamation League condemned the “violent vehicle attack” on the synagogue, calling it “a chilling assault on a sacred place of worship and a stark reminder that antisemitism in Australia is escalating beyond words.”
???? Brisbane Synagogue attack on Friday night ????
Police released CCTV footage of a Toyota Hilux ramming the synagogue's iron gates, narrowly missing a person walking on the other side.
Vision of the incident shows the driver narrowly avoiding hitting a person standing behind the… pic.twitter.com/qAcywFkVMw
— Meshy (@meshygrey) February 21, 2026
“While no one was physically injured, the deliberate targeting of a house of worship has sent shockwaves through the Jewish community and reinforced the urgent need for decisive action against hate-fueled violence,” it said.
Dvir Abramovich, the chair of the group, declared the truck “didn’t just smash into metal gates last night. It smashed into the idea that Jews in Australia can pray in peace. When a vehicle is driven at a synagogue that is intimidation on wheels.
“We are told this is not being treated as terrorism. But when a synagogue is deliberately attacked, the label matters less than the impact. The fear is real. The shock is real. The message is unmistakable. Since October 7, antisemitism in this country has not whispered, it has roared,” he said.
A report published last year by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) said the country saw 1,654 incidents during the 12-month period from October 1, 2024, to September 30, 2025 — about five times the annual average recorded in the decade prior to the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack that launched the war in Gaza.
That was less, however, than the 2,062 incidents recorded the previous year, which included the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attack, ECAJ noted, although the impact of the attacks on the community remained high.
Critics have accused Albanese’s center-left Labor Party government of moving too slowly to protect Jewish Australians despite the string of antisemitic incidents, including a terror attack at a Hanukkah celebration in December that killed 15 people, Australia’s worst mass shooting in nearly 30 years.
Agencies contributed to this report.
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