Punches thrown between Palestine, Israel protesters at Bondi Beach

Punches were thrown and demonstrators hurled abuse at one another as pro-Israel and Palestinian protest groups clashed during a tense stand-off at Bondi Beach.

Two rival protests held at the Sydney beach turned ugly on Sunday morning when pro-Israel demonstrators shouted abuse at a group of a few hundred pro-Palestinian demonstrators, who had converged on the sand for a paddle-out supporting Gaza.

Despite a heavy police presence and determined work by officers to keep the two groups separated, punches were thrown during a scuffle between demonstrators, video shows.

Police are investigating the incident.

The rival protests broke out after pro-Israel groups took exception to the paddle-out. Organised by the group Jews Against the Occupation, the event had posters calling on “surfers, Bondi residents and Palestine supporters” to join the gathering.

In the lead-up, pro-Israel groups including the conservative Australian Jewish Association circulated a call for a counter-protest to be held at the beach at the same time, saying the decision to hold the event at Bondi, which has a large Jewish population, was deliberately provocative.

It prompted a few hundred pro-Israel supporters to line the promenade in response. The protest and counterprotests were mostly peaceful: both groups sang and chanted as the morning went on.

But video captured before the paddle-out showed punches were thrown during a scuffle between the two groups, and as the pro-Palestinian contingent left the beach about 11.30am, the Herald saw a group of pro-Israel demonstrators hurling ugly abuse at the participants.

A group of pro-Israel supporters called the demonstrators “inbred” and “terrorists” and shouted “go back to Lakemba”.

The pro-Palestine contingent chanted “Israel is a terror state” as they left the beach, and despite the attempts by police to keep the two groups separate, some lingered at the beach as tempers began to flare.

Michael Gencher, executive director of StandWithUs Australia, a pro-Zionist group, helped set up the counterprotest at short notice. He said it was “targeted provocation” to hold a pro-Palestine demonstration at Bondi in the face of the area’s large Jewish population.

“I think that we’ve ignored enough as a community,” he said. “We have been intimidated and, you know, we’ve had vandalism, graffiti, and now this is in broad daylight. We saw this as a huge crossing of a red line. We don’t want to pick a fight [but] why should we feel intimidated?”

But Michelle Berkon, from the group Jews Against the Occupation, who helped organise the protest, said she was a Bondi local, and she laughed off the counterprotest.

“If Jews choose to support a genocidal, colonial regime, that’s their problem,” she said.

“They do not have any right to exclude people from their own public spaces. We’re Jewish too. I was born and grew up in Bondi, and even if I didn’t, I have every right to come here.”

The Australian Jewish Association helped to co-ordinate a counter-protest to the event, saying it was “provocative” to hold the paddle-out in Bondi because of the eastern suburb’s Jewish population.

“Bondi is on edge, everyone is nervous,” AJA chief executive Robert Gregory told Seven News in the lead-up to the event, claiming the pro-Palestinian protesters were “troublemakers coming from outside the area”.

The paddle-out was also opposed by Waverley mayor Will Nemesh, who tried to have it blocked by writing to the NSW Police Minister Yasmin Catley.

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