In yet another antisemitic incident in Australia, a Sydney daycare center was set on fire overnight Monday and an outer wall was sprayed with antisemitic graffiti.

The building was badly damaged but fortunately, no one was injured.

Security camera footage revealed two masked men, one pouring flammable material and igniting it and the second man spray-painting graffiti.

The daycare center is not a Jewish-affiliated institution but is near the Marouba Shul and an Orthodox Jewish school. Due to the antisemitic graffiti, the police is investigating the incident as a hate crime.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited the site on Tuesday morning and convened Australia’s national cabinet to discuss the surge of antisemitic attacks. This was the second antisemitic incident in Sydney this week and the latest in a series of antisemitic arson attempts and acts of vandalism in the city. Melbourne has also suffered numerous antisemitic incidents, including the firebombing of the Adass Israel shul last month, which is being investigated as a terror attack.

However, according to Simone Abel, the head of the legal department at the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Alabane’s announcement is too little and too late.

“Unfortunately, we haven’t seen the kind of response that we’ve needed to see earlier on,” she said, calling the incident a “wake-up call” for the country.

“Antisemitism is a disease, and it spreads,” Abel said. “[These attacks] are a prelude of what’s to come.”

The Australian Jewish Association (AJA) responded to the daycare fire by blaming the liberal Labor government. “For the first time ever, Australia has a widespread, evil, out-of-control campaign of antisemitic violence,” AJA stated.

This past Friday, the Sydney home formerly owned by Alex Ryvchin, the co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, was vandalized along with four nearby cars. Two cars were set on fire, the others were damaged and one was spray-painted with offensive anti-semitic graffiti.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)