Teens Arrested After Allegedly Threatening to Kill Jewish Children on School Bus in Bondi
Five teenage males were arrested after allegedly threatening dozens of Jewish children with Nazi chants on a school bus in Sydney on Wednesday.
It’s understood that the teens were part of a group of eight who took part in a racial attack on a private Jewish school bus at Bondi.
They reportedly threatened to kill the young passengers, aged between five and 12, yelling “Heil Hitler!” and telling them to “stop taking over Palestine.”
They boarded the bus at Alison Road, Randwick around 4 pm, and got off at Bondi Junction shortly after the crying children called their parents using their mobile phones.
Five of the teenagers believed to be involved in the anti-Semitic attack, aged between 15 and 17, were arrested at 3:50 am on Thursday in Dover Heights Street. They were identified through the CCTV from the school bus.
Still intoxicated, the alleged perpetrators could not be formally interviewed by the police. The others are yet to be located.
Isabelle Stanton’s daughters, who are eight and 12, were left traumatised by the incident.
“They were screaming racial stuff, ‘We are going to murder you,’ ‘We are going to kill you,‘ and ‘Free Palestine,’” Stanton told the Daily Telegraph, referring to the teenagers whom the kids described as drunk.
“When they got on the bus, they wanted to sit next to the kids. When they got off they kicked the door and windows of the bus and yelled, ‘We are going to bash you guys. F- Israel, free Palestine.’
“The kids are aware of what is going on in the Middle East but the conflict in the Middle East should not be imported here – we are now feeling very vulnerable.”
Another mother, Jacqui Blackburn, questioned why the bus driver allowed the teenagers on the bus and did nothing to help their children.
“Under no circumstances was the bus driver allowed to open those doors for those guys,” she told Today. “He let these arbitrary guys on and why he let them on, we don’t know. He didn’t stop what was being said and done to the kids. He saw he had 25 traumatised children on that bus and he did nothing about it.”
The schools from where the children are from, Mount Sinai College, Moriah College and Emmanuel School, said that they will increase supervision on buses.