Military Road resident Shannon Lancour, 41, and her partner were startled awake by a loud bang.
“My boyfriend looked out the window and said he thought it was a fire. We ran to the balcony and the fire crew was just arriving, it was completely ablaze,” she told the Herald on Friday.
An antisemitic attack in Dover Heights overnight.Credit: Nine News
“I think we woke up to the sound of the gasoline tank exploding but then we kept hearing pops and whistles. The flames just kept getting bigger, it took the fire crew 40 minutes to get it out,” she said.
“The more water they sprayed, the bigger the flames got.”
Lancour, who is not Jewish, said that it was “absolutely heart-wrenching” to see the community targeted.
“We’re very friendly, everyone waves and smiles. It’s such a brilliant community, it’s a community full of love and acceptance,” she said.
On Friday morning, the two cars had been taken away by crime scene technicians. Council crews were working on cleaning up the street, while residents looked on aghast.
Premier Chris Minns said the government will do everything in its power to catch the “thugs” responsible.
“This is a disgusting and dangerous act of violence that is the latest example of a rising level of antisemitic attacks in our community,” he said.
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“Civil society stands united in condemning this flagrant racism.”
Minns will be receiving an update from police later this morning.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the incident was an “outrage” that goes “against everything that we stand for”. In an interview on ABC Radio National, Albanese called for calm ahead of anticipated protests this weekend.
“What we need to do is to lower the temperature in the community. Australians want to see the conflict end, they want to see hostages released … they don’t want to see conflict brought here to Australia,” he said.
The people responsible for the vandalism deserve “swift, harsh punishment”, NSW Opposition Leader Mark Speakman said.
“With a fragile Gaza ceasefire brokered just yesterday, it’s devastating to see yet another disgusting antisemitic attack early this morning, involving arson and vandalism, this time in Dover Heights,” he said.
“Hatred has no place in our society.”
A burnt out van is taken away after an antisemitic incident at Dover Heights.
Sydney’s Jewish community is being targeted by masked criminals aiming to “menace and intimidate”, Jewish Board of Deputies president David Ossip said.
“The hate-filled criminals who are perpetrating these crimes need to know that their campaign of domestic terrorism will not succeed. The Jewish community is resilient, strong and unbowed and will continue to be so,” he said.
The incident comes just a week after a synagogue in Sydney’s south was vandalised in what Minns called a “hate-filled attack”.
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Two hooded figures were captured on CCTV spraying slurs and swastikas on the Southern Sydney Synagogue at Allawah last Friday.
Since then, another synagogue in Newtown and a home and several cars in Queens Park have been vandalised with similar slurs.
