Video shows Muslims praying in front of planter, not Australia shooting memorial
- Published on February 20, 2026 at 06:19
- 4 min read
- By Dene-Hern CHEN, AFP Australia
After a group of Muslims praying in Sydney was forcibly removed amid a demonstration against the visit of Israeli President Isaac Herzog in February 2026, posts shared a false claim that they were praying in front of a display memorialising the victims of the antisemitic Bondi Beach shooting. There were no memorials at the site of the scuffle and police told AFP that a senior officer had okayed the prayers.
"Islamists... baited NSW police this evening with public prayers right in front of memorial displays for the victims of the Bondi attack, as the police were trying to clear out the area," reads a February 9, 2026, Facebook post shared 125 times.
The attached video, viewed 10,000 times, shows people kneeling to start praying, before some officers started pulling participants off the ground and shoving at them, drawing shouts from the crowd for the police to "leave them alone".
The post circulated online after a February 9 demonstration against Israel's President Isaac Herzog, who had been invited by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to console the Jewish community after an antisemitic mass shooting on Bondi Beach on December 14, which killed 15 people (archived here and here).
The rally in Sydney turned violent as police scuffled with protesters, hitting them and members of the media, including AFP, with pepper spray.
Pro-Palestinian activists called for protests nationwide prior to the Israeli president's visit, while Amnesty International Australia urged supporters to rally for an end to "genocide" against Palestinians (archived link).
It also urged for Herzog to be investigated for alleged war crimes in the Gaza Strip.
Similar posts with the same video were shared elsewhere on Facebook and X, with the captions claiming that the Muslims taking part in the prayers were doing it as "a provocative show of force".
"They could have prayed at a mosque but they chose to do it (at) an unauthorised protest against memorial events for the victims of the terrorist attack at Bondi. These people wanted to start a riot by baiting police."
But the participants were not praying in front of a display commemorating the victims of the Bondi massacre.
Planter, not memorial
The circulating footage carried the watermark for Instagram user beastfromthe_middleeast, who had posted a longer and better quality version of the video with the caption, "Warning NSW police just assaulted Muslims praying peacefully" (archived link).
The video shows the group kneeling in front of a planter with crimson-coloured plants.
AFP visited the square on February 19, right by Sydney Town Hall where the scuffle took place, and found that the full planter does not have any memorial displays.
In the days after the Bondi Beach attack, mourners laid flowers and placed candles at Bondi Pavilion, near the site of the shooting -- about seven kilometres (four miles) east of Sydney Town Hall.
The City of Sydney said in an email to AFP on February 13 that it had "no involvement in any memorial being set up" in the area where the February 9 scuffle broke out.
Prayers allowed
Police also told AFP in a February 13 email that the group offering prayers outside the Town Hall building in Sydney had actually sought permission during the protest.
"The NSW police force has now become aware that a senior police officer had allowed a group of Muslim protesters to continue praying at Town Hall square on Monday evening," it said.
"The senior officer was attempting to relay that message to other officers who were carrying out a move on direction during what was a noisy, dynamic and fast moving situation. However some worshippers were moved on before the message from the senior officer was able to be relayed."
NSW Police also told AFP Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon had said the move on direction was not targeting any religion (archived link).
"I have apologised for any offence taken for interfering with that religious process," Lanyon said in the statement provided by the agency."
One of the participants told the Australian news outlet Sydney Morning Herald that they had chosen to stop and pray because the time to do so after sunset was expiring (archived link).
"We were about to miss the prayer, so we had to do it. It wasn’t a stunt, it wasn't bait, we just had to pray," he said.
Adherents of Islam pray five times daily according to the time of the day -- dawn, noon, afternoon, just after sunset, and in the evening.
The Australian Associated Press also debunked the claim (archived link).
AFP has fact-checked other false claims related to the anti-Herzog protest in Sydney.
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