The NSW Police Force assigned a team of runners as bodyguards for IDF soldiers running in the Sydney Marathon. Andrew Brown reports.
Six Israeli runners, identified by a senior NSW police officer as serving members of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), ran Sunday’s Sydney Marathon under the personal protection of the NSW Police Force. Not a cordon. A detail.
According to the officer, each runner was assigned between four and six police, dressed as competitors, running the 42 kilometres beside them.
The point is bigger than six runners. Up to 40 current and former IDF soldiers were admitted to Australia without any apparent screening, for a fun run, in the face of public anger at who they were and what they had reportedly done in Gaza.
That alone was incendiary.
Public picks up the tab
Then it emerges that NSW taxpayers picked up the bill to escort men with no diplomatic status, no office and no entitlement to state protection. Thirty officers, a ten hour shift, Sunday penalty rates. Conservatively $30,000 before planning, command and vehicles. Insult stacked on injury.
It lands three months after the Commonwealth committed $124 million to Jewish community security. So the question writes itself. Where does this end? When do the organisers, sponsors and beneficiaries of an event like this pay for their own security, as every other private event in NSW is required to do? And when does the Minns government stop treating the public purse as an open chequebook for whoever has the access to ask?
Chris Sidoti, an Australian barrister, sits on the United Nations Commission of Inquiry that found in September 2025 that Israel committed genocide in Gaza. His position: anyone who served in the Israeli forces in Gaza since October 2023 should be treated as a suspect in war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
At the National Press Club he warned that Australians who served there may face criminal liability under Australian law.
Division 268 of the Commonwealth Criminal Code gives Australian courts jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes wherever they occur and whoever commits them. Australia ratified the Genocide Convention, which obliges it to prevent genocide.
When 40 soldiers of that army landed at Kingsford Smith, those obligations required screening at the border and questions from the Australian Federal Police.
Here is what happened. Home Affairs stamped the passports. The AFP did nothing. NSW Police, on somebody’s instruction, put up to three dozen officers on the course so nothing would interrupt their run.
Sidoti said suspects should be interrogated wherever they land. Sydney gave them an escort.
Protection for foreign army engaged in war crimes
Be clear about the $124 million. It followed the Bondi massacre of December 14, when 15 people were shot dead at a Chanukah celebration, and nobody begrudges a cent of it. A community that buried 15 of its own has every claim on protection. That is exactly the point. Protecting synagogues and schools is funded and accountable.
Sunday was neither. It was for six soldiers of a foreign army under a genocide finding, it appeared in no budget line, and the people of NSW paid for it without being told. The community’s security is a line item. The army’s security is a freebie, arranged in the dark.
The one NSW program that funded security for every faith, Safe Places for Faith Communities, exhausted its $15 million and was not renewed in June. Mosques, churches and temples that want a reinforced door are told the money is gone.
NSW Police found 36 officers for a fun run.
In August 2025 Chris Minns sent NSW Police to the Supreme Court to stop a Palestine march crossing the Harbour Bridge. It lost, and more than 300,000 people crossed anyway in pouring rain. Protesters have since been arrested and fined for chanting on public streets while police insisted marches drained resources from ordinary policing.
When residents want to march, resources are scarce and the law is tightened. When Israel’s soldiers want to jog, resources appear and the law is forgotten.
Comedian’s visa sabotaged, war crimes suspects cheered through
The people who make the requests have the Premier’s number. The people being policed get the riot squad. In three years the Minns government has not refused a single security request that arrived through the Israel lobby or the consulate, and it has never told the public what those requests cost.
So the questions, with names attached.
The questions
Commissioner Mal Lanyon: how many officers ran on Sunday, who authorised it, and what did it cost? Threat assessment or courtesy?
Premier Chris Minns: was your office told? Did your office ask? Who contacted NSW Police, and when?
Police Minister Yasmin Catley: did you sign off? If not, why is your Commissioner running political protection details without you?
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke: were any of the 40 IDF entrants screened against Australia’s obligations under the Genocide Convention?
Israel’s Consul General in Sydney, the marathon organisers and the Shalva team: did you request the escort, and will you reimburse NSW for it?
The Community Security Group and the ECAJ: did you request or coordinate police for the Israeli runners, and was any Commonwealth security money spent on them?
One officer has already decided the public should know. Everyone named above now decides whether the people who paid for Sunday are the last to learn what they bought.
MWM will put these questions to each office named.
Andrew Brown is a Sydney businessman in the health products sector, former Deputy Mayor of Mosman and Palestine peace activist