Last February, I spent three days accompanying Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as I reported a TIME cover story about his pioneering initiative. However, during my observations of parliamentary proceedings in Canberra and visits to flood-affected towns in northern Queensland, it was obvious that neither children’s mental health nor extreme weather events were the country’s primary focus.

Albanese’s press briefings and impromptu media appearances centered on a single issue: a recent surge in synagogue vandalism and harassment of Jewish Australians. The critical question was whether U.S. support for Israel and Canberra’s tight alliance with Washington were putting Australian Jews at risk.

“The Australian government doesn’t have a direct role in the Middle East,” Albanese told me on his Australian Air Force 737 when asked about the issue. “We’re not participants. We don’t supply weapons. Overwhelmingly, Australians want there to be peace. And they don’t want conflict brought here.”

That final wish was tragically shattered on Sunday when two gunmen opened fire on a crowd of hundreds at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, killing at least 15 people and wounding dozens more. While the exact motive remains unconfirmed, given that the victims had gathered to celebrate the Jewish holiday of , Albanese condemned the attack as “antisemitism” and “a horrific act” of “terrorism.”

According to police, the two attackers were a 50-year-old father (killed at the scene) and his 24-year-old son, Naveed Akram, who was overpowered and disarmed by a bystander and remains under arrest in a Sydney hospital in critical condition. This is Australia’s deadliest mass shooting in three decades, with victims ranging from 10 to 87 years old—including two rabbis and at least one Holocaust survivor.

Australia’s 28 million population includes around 117,000 Jewish residents, who have reported an almost fivefold rise in firebombing, arson, graffiti, and hate speech incidents since Israel’s military response to Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks, per the Executive Council of Australian Jewry. The surge in hate crimes was so notable that it prompted Mike Burgess, director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), to state that the threat of fatal antisemitic violence was his top priority.

In response to Sunday’s tragedy, Albanese emphasized that “an attack on Jewish Australians is an attack on every Australian.” He also highlighted his administration’s efforts to address the issue, including appointing a dedicated Antisemitism Envoy and implementing mandatory jail sentences for Nazi salutes.

Criticism emerged quickly, however, with Australian Opposition Leader Sussan Leys accusing Albanese of failing to protect Jewish Australians and allowing antisemitism to “fester.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also placed direct blame on the Australian government, which “let the disease” of antisemitism spread “and the result is the horrific attacks on Jews we saw today.” Netanyahu added that Albanese—whose government endorsed Palestinian statehood in September—had “replaced weakness with weakness and appeasement with more appeasement.”

Still, not everyone agrees that catering to extremism is the problem. Clarke Jones, a terrorism-focused criminologist at the Australian National University, tells TIME what transpired on Sunday “doesn’t surprise me [as] this sort of thing is bubbling away.” However, Jones notes that marginalized people in a “pressure cooker” of isolation, disaffection, and resentment can feel “denied being able to voice concerns or perspectives without the fear of trouble or being silenced.”

“This Palestinian-Israel situation has been going on for a long, long time—well before the Hamas attacks,” says Jones.

Determining the true motivation for the violence will be the focus of ongoing police investigations, with ASIO revealing Akram had been questioned for extremist links in 2019 but deemed “not an immediate threat.” Australia’s already strict gun laws are set to be reviewed after it emerged the weapons involved were obtained legally. Three improvised explosive devices were also found at the scene, underscoring that the carnage could have been far worse.

The coming hours and days will be tense as community groups rally to de-escalate tensions. A broad range of local Muslim organizations—including the Darulfatwa Islamic High Council of Australia, Ahmadiyya Muslim Association, Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, and the Bonnyrigg mosque near Akram’s home—have all separately condemned the attack. Efforts to calm tensions were boosted by the fact that the man who heroically tackled Akram, fruit shop owner Ahmed al-Ahmed, is a Muslim father of two. A fundraiser for al-Ahmed raised over $365,000 in just 12 hours.

But calls for unity have been marred by several troubling incidents. A Muslim cemetery in south-western Sydney was reportedly vandalized with butchered pig heads. A woman wearing a keffiyeh was escorted away from the Bondi memorial by police for allegedly disturbing the peace.

“I hope there’s going to be no copycats,” says Jones. “And I am aware of the good work the communities do to prevent these things happening. But terrorist attacks do happen in waves.”

As the self-styled “Lucky Country” grapples with the attack’s aftermath, soul-searching in such a polarized society will not be easy. “What we see is Australians coming together,” Albanese told a press conference on Monday. “There is no place in Australia for antisemitism. There is no place for hatred.”