Australian Health Workers Suspended After Threatening Israeli Patients
Two Australian medical workers caught on video making threats against Israeli patients have set off an uproar in a country where there has been a spate of antisemitic attacks in recent weeks.
'I won't treat them,' one of the workers, wearing medical scrubs and a hijab, is heard saying in the video. 'I'll kill them.'
Discussing Israeli patients who had come to the hospital near Sydney, a co-worker, also dressed in scrubs, can be seen ominously running a finger across his neck
The workers appeared to be speaking from inside a medical facility. Neither has been identified publicly by officials.
Australian official have been quick to denounce the comments captured on the video, which went viral after a pro-Israel content creator posted it online.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday called the threats 'sickening and shameful.' He said the two workers, identified as employees of Bankstown Hospital, had been suspended. He also said in a statement that they had been referred to the police for a criminal investigation.
That the country's prime minister felt it necessary to comment on the video speaks to the high-level concern set off by a recent explosion in antisemitic speech and attacks. Australia has been hit with a rash of antisemitic attacks in recent weeks, including incidents where a synagogue was defaced with red swastikas and a day care facility was set ablaze.
There have been no reports of major casualties, but the violence represents a dramatic escalation of tensions reverberating from the war in Gaza, which has also spurred Islamophobic episodes in Australia.
In November, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, an umbrella organization that has been tracking and documenting reports of antisemitism since 1990, reported a 316 percent increase in the number of incidents from October 2023 — when the war in Gaza began — to September 2024, compared with the previous twelve months.
The video of the two hospital workers, which was viewed by The New York Times, was recorded by Max Veifer and uploaded to his social media accounts, where other posts consist of videos of people discussing their views on Israel.
The video of the two workers had been edited, and used emojis to bleep out words.
Although one of the workers appears in the video to suggest that he may have harmed patients, health officials said that an examination of the hospital's records had so far turned up nothing suspicious.
'We have already taken steps to review the safety of the hospital concerned in this matter, and we have identified nothing that indicates the hospital is unsafe,' the New South Wales health secretary, Susan Pearce, said in her own video.
Ryan Park, the state's health minister, called the workers' comments 'an act of bastardry' and said 'those people, subject to that investigation, will not ever be working for New South Wales Health again,'
Mr. Park and Ms. Pearce both offered apologies.
'I want to assure the Jewish community today that they have my utmost sorrow,' Mr. Park said, 'but more importantly, my utmost energy, dedication and time, along with the secretary, to reassure them that our hospitals will continue to provide them high quality, safe care every time and anytime they present.'
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