Melbourne — Australian police said Monday they are hunting for three suspects over an arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue, designating it a terrorist act. Mask-wearing attackers set the Adass Israel Synagogue ablaze before dawn on Friday, police said, gutting much of the building. Some congregants were inside the single-story building at the time but no serious injuries were reported.

The fire sparked international condemnation, including from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Police have “three suspects in that matter, who we are pursuing,” Victorian police chief commissioner Shane Patton told a news conference.

Investigations over the weekend had made “significant progress,” Patton said, declining to provide further details of the operation.

Officials from the federal and state police, as well as Australia’s intelligence agency, met on Monday and concluded that the fire was “likely a terrorist incident,” the police chief said.

“Based on that, I am very confident that we now have had an attack, a terrorist attack on that synagogue,” Patton said.

Australia’s reaction to antisemitism “on the rise”

Counterterrorism police have joined the probe. Under Australian law, a terrorist act is one that causes death, injury or serious property damage to advance a political, religious or ideological cause and is aimed at intimidating the public or a government.

The official designation unlocks help from other federal agencies for the investigation, said Australian National University terrorism researcher Michael Zekulin.

“Basically you get additional resources that you might not otherwise get,” he told AFP.

There was no information to suggest further attacks were likely and Australia’s terror threat assessment remained at the level of “probable,” said Mike Burgess, director-general of the Australian Security and Intelligence Organization.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who has denounced the synagogue attack as an “outrage,” announced the creation of a federal police taskforce targeting antisemitism.

“Antisemitism is a major threat and antisemitism has been on the rise,” Albanese told a news conference, citing the synagogue blaze and recent vandalism.

The taskforce will be made up of federal police to be deployed across the country as needed, officials said. They will focus on threats, violence and hatred towards the Jewish community and parliamentarians.

The war in Gaza has sparked protests from supporters of Israel and the Palestinian people in cities around Australia, as in much of the world.

In January, Australian lawmakers ushered in a series of new laws in a bid to get to grips with a spike in antisemitic acts, including banning the performance of the Nazi salute in public and the display or sale of Nazi hate symbols such as the swastika. The new laws also made the act of glorifying or praising acts of terrorism a criminal offense. 

Australia’s Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said at the time  that the laws sent “a clear message: there is no place in Australia for acts and symbols that glorify the horrors of the Holocaust and terrorist acts.”

Israeli, Australian leaders “respectfully disagree” on definition of antisemitism

Netanyahu attacked the Australian government’s stance in the run-up to the fire.

“This heinous act cannot be separated from the anti-Israel sentiment emanating from the Australian Labor government,” he said after the attack, declaring that “anti-Israel sentiment is antisemitism.”

Australia voted last week in favor of a United Nations General Assembly resolution that demanded the end of Israel’s “unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

New Zealand, Britain, and Canada were among 157 countries that voted for the resolution, with eight against, including the U.S.

Australian Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus rejected Netanyahu’s accusation.

“He’s absolutely wrong. I respectfully disagree with Mr. Netanyahu,” Dreyfus told national broadcaster ABC on Monday. “Australia remains a close friend of Israel, as we have been since the Labor government recognized the State of Israel when it was created by the United Nations. Now that remains the position.”

Lara Trump will step down as co-chair of the Republican National Committee as she considers a number of potential options with her father-in-law, President-elect Donald Trump, set to return to the White House.

Among those possibilities is replacing Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, whom Trump tapped to be the next secretary of state. If Rubio is confirmed, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will choose who takes the seat through the remainder of Rubio’s term, which expires in 2026.

“It is something I would seriously consider,” she told The Associated Press in an interview. “If I’m being completely transparent, I don’t know exactly what that would look like. And I certainly want to get all of the information possible if that is something that’s real for me. But yeah, I would 100% consider it.”

Elected as RNC co-chair in March, Lara Trump was a key player in the Republicans retaking the White House and control of the Senate while maintaining a narrow House majority. What she does next could shape Republican politics, given her elevated political profile and her ties to the incoming president.

The idea of placing a Trump family member in the Senate has been lauded in some Republican circles. Among the people pushing for her to replace Rubio is Maye Musk, mother of Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

“The Senate is an old man’s club. We desperately need a smart, young, outspoken woman who will reveal their secrets,” she posted on X. Lara Trump is 42.

Elon Musk, who was with Lara Trump on election night at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, responded to his mother’s post: “Lara Trump is genuinely great.”

Led by chairman Michael Whatley and Lara Trump, the RNC invested heavily in recruiting roughly 230,000 volunteers and an army of lawyers for what it called its “election integrity” effort, four years after Donald Trump lost his reelection bid to Democrat Joe Biden, citing false or unproven theories about voter fraud. Outside groups such as Turning Point Action and Musk’s America PAC took a greater responsibility for advertising and get-out-the-vote efforts.

While Whatley will remain RNC chairman, Lara Trump said she felt she had accomplished her goals in the co-chair role.

“With that big win, I kind of feel like my time is up,” she said. “What I intended to do has been done.”

Lara Trump praised Musk’s new endeavor, the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a nongovernmental task force headed by Musk and and fellow entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. They’ve been tapped to fire federal workers, cut programs and slash federal regulations as part of Trump’s “Save America” agenda for his second term.

“I really don’t think we’ve seen movement like this in our federal government since our country’s founding in many ways,” she said. “And I think if they are successful in what they plan to do, I think it is going to be transformative to America in a great way.”

She said she expects a different presidency this time, beginning with the structure of the administration: While Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner served as White House advisers in his last administration, Lara Trump said she doesn’t see any family member taking any position in the White House this time around with her father-in-law.

“He really wants to get in there and do a good job for the four years, and that’s all he wants to serve,” she said. “Four years, and he’s out.”

Lara Trump also says she expects the Republican Party to be more unified than it has ever been. When she became co-chair in May, the Trump campaign and the RNC merged, with staffers fired and positions restructured. She said the result could spell trouble for GOP lawmakers who do not agree with Trump’s agenda.

“The whole party has totally shifted and totally changed,” she said. “I think people are feeling a little more bold in coming out with their political views.”