FIRST ON FOX: Senior Israeli intelligence officials say warnings to Australia ahead of a deadly attack during a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach were part of a much broader warning: an accelerating global increase in attempts to carry out terror attacks in Western countries, increasingly targeting not only Jewish targets but also Christians and large gatherings, especially during religious holidays.
According to a senior Israeli intelligence official, Israel’s foreign intelligence service has been tracking a sharp increase in the number of attack attempts worldwide, many of which are low-tech, quickly mobilized and designed to exploit open societies and crowded public events.
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People attend a floral memorial honoring the victims of a mass shooting that targeted a Hanukkah party on Sunday, at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, December 16, 2025. (Flavio Brancaleone/Reuters)
Israeli intelligence officials say Australia is not an outlier. From their perspective, recent months have revealed a pattern of attempted and disrupted plots in Europe, North America and beyond, pointing to a persistent global threat rather than sporadic violence.
“If you knew how many terror attacks we have uncovered and prevented,” the senior official said, “your jaw would drop.”
Israeli intelligence officials say the increase in attempted attacks is partly driven by the way extremist and state-aligned networks are building a terror infrastructure worldwide while deliberately masking their origins.
Officials say the networks often rely on non-Iranian nationals to perform various roles in the operational chain, including logistics, intelligence gathering, financing and execution, to blur any connection to Tehran. In some cases, officers are recruited from migrant or refugee backgrounds, while in others criminal elements or hired proxies are used to carry out violent acts.
People gather around a tribute for shooting victims outside the Bondi Pavilion on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Monday, December 15, 2025, a day after a shooting. (Mark Baker/AP Photo)
To avoid detection, officials say the networks rely on encrypted communications and clandestine face-to-face meetings, sometimes outside the country where an attack is planned. In other cases, remote instructions are delivered over secure channels that bypass standard telecommunications monitoring.
According to Israeli assessments, extremist networks are increasingly overlapping: jihadist ideology, single-actor violence and state-linked activities now exist in the same ecosystem, fueled by online radicalization and geopolitical instability. Many conspiracies, officials say, are unsophisticated, making them harder to detect early, while still having the potential to cause mass casualties.
‘WE HAVE WARNED THEM’ SAYS JEWISH LEADER AFTER BONDI BEACH TERROR ATTACK THAT LEADS 15
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – DECEMBER 14: A member of the public leaves the scene with her child, who is covered in an emergency blanket, following a shooting at Bondi Beach on December 14, 2025 in Sydney, Australia. Two gunmen dressed in black fired several shots at Sydney’s world-famous Bondi Beach, wounding at least ten and killing three, and causing mass panic on Sunday evening. (Photo by George Chan/Getty Images)
Israeli intelligence officials and foreign diplomatic sources warn that the threat is not limited to Jewish targets and is global. “We have exposed terror cells in Germany, Greece, Austria – but not just in Europe – also in South America, India and Thailand.” The senior official said he could not elaborate further.
A senior foreign diplomatic source said the current environment is shaped by what they describe as a global contagion effect, with attacks being amplified online, celebrated through extremist networks and quickly replicated elsewhere.
According to the source, attacks are becoming increasingly attractive to extremists because they are relatively easy to carry out and at the same time have an outsized psychological and political impact.
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Heavily armed police officers are seen at the Christmas market in Essen, Germany. (Roland Weihrauch/Photo Alliance via Getty Images)
The source warned that Christian communities and wider civic gatherings are also vulnerable, especially during religious holidays and symbolic events that attract large crowds.
These concerns have been echoed across Europe in recent weeks, where authorities have sharply increased security at Christmas markets and holiday celebrations amid warnings that seasonal events pose a prime target for extremist violence. Armed patrols, barriers and surveillance were expanded in several cities as officials assess increased risks associated with jihadist-inspired attacks and lone actors.
On Monday, federal authorities announced they have foiled a New Year’s Eve terror plot, arresting suspects accused of planning coordinated attacks with improvised explosive devices, the Justice Department said. Prosecutors said the plot was disrupted before the explosives were fully assembled, underscoring both the scale of the threat and the importance of early intelligence intervention.
A second key Israeli intelligence source said the broader threat environment has worsened after two years of war in the Middle East, which they say has boosted radical Islamist movements worldwide.
According to the source, instability in Syria is of particular concern, creating conditions in which ISIS can regroup and regain influence beyond the region.
“I worry about Syria and that ISIS will return,” the source said, warning that renewed activity there could lead to further attacks in Europe, Australia and North America.
MAMDANI CONDEMNS ‘ANTISEMITIC TERROR’ AFTER THE HANUKKAH MASSACRE – BUT MUM ON ‘GLOBALIZE THE INTIFADA’
Police vans and ambulances stand next to the annual Christmas market in the city center after a possible terror incident on December 20, 2024 in Magdeburg, Germany. (Craig Stennett/Getty Images)
The source said the increasing prevalence of lone actors and sleeper cells poses a significant challenge to Western security forces, as individuals with minimal resources can still carry out deadly attacks and cause copycat violence.
While Australian authorities have not linked the Bondi Beach attack to foreign intelligence leadership, Israeli officials say the case fits into a broader global picture: a continued increase in attempted terror attacks, many of which never become public because they are disrupted prematurely.
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“We see it everywhere,” the senior intelligence official said. “And most of what we hold back, the public never hears.”
