In the hours after a terrorist attack ripped through a Chanukah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Sunday, killing at least 16 people, a parallel assault erupted online.

Across X and Reddit, conspiracy theories insisting the massacre was a “false flag” operation orchestrated by Israel spread rapidly, amplified by accounts with large followings and, in some cases, millions of views. The claims alleged—obviously without a shred of evidence—that Israel’s Mossad organized the attack, that victims were “crisis actors,” and that one of the shooters was an IDF soldier.

The narratives converged on a familiar theme: that Israel engineered the bloodshed to manufacture global sympathy amid mounting criticism over the Gaza war or to justify escalation against Iran.

Other posts asserted that the attackers’ apparent firearms proficiency “proved” they were trained Israeli soldiers. One widely shared claim falsely identified an alleged shooter as an IDF veteran who had “returned from Gaza,” a claim unsupported by authorities. Another strand targeted wounded victims, including prominent pro-Israel activist Arsen Ostrovsky, branding them “crisis actors” and suggesting the attack was staged to push antisemitism laws and security funding.

Some conspiracy theorists cited supposed “foreknowledge,” pointing to unrelated social media predictions and misrepresented Google Trends data as proof. Experts note such claims recycle debunked tropes used after mass-casualty attacks worldwide.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)