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JewishHistoryעברית

Sydney Israeli Consulate and Hakoah Club bombings

Date
23 December 1982Hebrew date: 7th of Tevet, 5743
Location
Israeli Consulate, Sydney, and Hakoah Club, BondiAustralia
Then part of
Commonwealth of Australia
Perpetrators
  • May 15 Organization (Terror organization)
Killed (estimate)
No reliable estimate
Category
Terror attack
Confidence
High

Summary

On 23 December 1982 a time-delay explosive detonated at about 1.55 p.m. in the stairwell beside the Israeli Consulate on the seventh floor of 100 William Street, Sydney. About 6.45 p.m. a bomb in the boot of a car exploded in the car park of the Hakoah Club at 61-67 Hall Street, Bondi, where the club was hosting Maccabi Games competitors; the device malfunctioned and did not detonate as intended. The NSW State Coroner found in 2022 that both explosions were international terrorism by the May 15 organisation, that Hussayn Al-Umari (Abu Ibrahim) built the bombs outside Australia and directed the attacks, and that local supporters assisted. There were no deaths. The coroner recorded significant injuries at the consulate, including a 70-year-old tea lady with a fractured skull, four broken ribs and a broken leg; ABC News states that two people were injured. NSW Police described the attacks as motivated by Palestinian nationalism. No one has been convicted.

Sources

  1. State Coroner Teresa O'Sullivan, Inquiry into the fire/explosion at the Israeli Consulate and Hakoah Club. Coroners Court of New South Wales (2022)
  2. NSW coroner finds Hassayn Al-Umari masterminded 1982 bombing of Sydney's Hakoah Club, Israeli consulate. ABC News (2022)
  3. Bombings of the Israeli Consulate and Hakoah Club. NSW Police Force
  4. Leon Shapiro, World Jewish Population. American Jewish Year Book (1981)

Jewish population (estimates)

  • Worldwide: 13,034,000[5]c. 1980DellaPergola's revised core estimate for 1 January 1980 in the 2024 Year Book chapter (original AJYB figure that year was 14,527,100).
  • Commonwealth of Australia: 65,000 – 67,000[64]c. 1979AJYB 1981: about 67,000 Jews in Australia in 1979. DellaPergola 2020 retrospective: 65,000 for Australia in 1970. Near the 1982 Sydney consulate / Hakoah bombings.
  • Israeli Consulate, Sydney, and Hakoah Club, Bondi: 26,500[4]Jews in Sydney at the end of 1979, about three years before the bombings. The 1981 American Jewish Year Book marks the figure as a reply to its 1980 inquiry. Both sites, the consulate and the Hakoah Club in Bondi, are in metropolitan Sydney.

Sources for population estimates

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