Australia charges teen over online threat as Israeli president due to visit

‘Mass, peaceful’ demonstration are planned across Australia to protest the visit of Israel’s President Isaac Herzog.

An Australian teenager has been charged for allegedly making online threats against Israeli President Isaac Herzog, whose visit to the country on Sunday has been met with planned protests, police complaints over alleged war crimes, and efforts to have his invitation revoked.

Australian Federal Police said in a statement on Thursday that the 19-year-old allegedly made the threats on a social media platform last month “towards a foreign head of state and internationally protected person”.

Police did not name the intended target of the alleged threats, but Australian media widely reported they were directed at Herzog.

The teenager was refused police bail and will appear before a court in Sydney on Thursday. The offence carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail, police said in the statement.

Herzog is due to arrive in Australia on Sunday for a five-day visit, following an invitation by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in the aftermath of the shooting of 15 people attending a Jewish festival at Sydney’s Bondi Beach in December.

The visit by Herzog – who is expected to meet survivors and the families of the victims of the shooting – has drawn strong opposition from pro-Palestine groups and those opposing Israel’s genocide in Gaza, with protests against the visit planned across some two dozen Australian cities, according to reports.

David Shoebridge, Greens party senator for New South Wales (NSW), home to Sydney, said the Albanese government “needs to withdraw this invitation now”.

“They should not have invited Herzog to Australia. Now the police are saying they have concerns about how his visit will cause ‘significant animosity’,” Shoebridge said in a post on social media on Wednesday.

“He has literally signed bombs used in the genocide in Gaza,” Shoebridge said of the Israeli president.

NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon announced on Tuesday that restrictions on protests would be extended in advance of the Israeli leader’s visit, stating, “I know that there is significant animosity about President Herzog’s visit.”

The Palestine Action Group has called on supporters to attend a rally in Sydney on Monday, urging people to march to the New South Wales state parliament in what is described as a “mass, peaceful gathering”.

An Australian and two Palestinian legal groups formally called on the Australian Federal Police last month to investigate Herzog for his alleged role in war crimes in Gaza.

The Australian Centre for International Justice, Al-Haq and the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights said that they had written to “urgently alert” Australian police of their concerns “in light of serious and credible criminal allegations of incitement to genocide and advocating genocide” by Herzog amid Israel’s war on Gaza since October 7, 2023.