The U.S. consulate in Sydney, Australia, was attacked early Monday morning by a sledgehammer-wielding suspect who smashed windows and smeared anti-Israel graffiti on its doors.
CCTV footage obtained by police shows a hooded figure with their face obscured smashing nine glass windows of the consulate office with a hammer at around 3am, ABC News reports.
Two red triangles were also spray-painted over the consulate’s coat of arms on the front door – a symbol Reuters reports has been used by anti-Israel protesters.
CBC News also says the symbol has been used by Hamas to identify Israeli military targets in videos, a Fox News report claims.
The ABC report notes police have described this as an incident of malicious damage and are still working to identify the motive behind the incident, but it is believed to be politically motivated.
A couple walks past the boarded windows at the U.S. consulate as police investigate the vandalism in Sydney, Monday, June 10, 2024. A suspect is believed to have smashed nine holes in the reinforced glass windows of the building in North Sydney after 3 a.m., a police statement said. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has condemned the act, urging people to have “respectful political debate and discourse.”
“People are traumatised by what is going on in the Middle East, particularly those with relatives in either Israel or in the Palestinian occupied territories.”
Speaking at a press conference in Canberra on Monday morning, Albanese called for people to “turn the heat down,” adding that it’s “not the Australian way.”
“Measures such as painting the U.S. Consulate do nothing to advance the cause of those who have committed what is, of course, a crime to damage property.”
A spokesperson for the consulate also told Reuters operations inside have been unaffected and “Australian Federal Police and New South Wales Police are investigating the incident.”
The same consulate was sprayed with graffiti in April, including the words “Freee (sic) Gaza.”
The U.S. Consulate in Melbourne, meanwhile, was vandalized by anti-Israel agitators on May 31.