Israeli President visits Sydney LIVE updates: Protesters issue defiant message as Isaac Herzog touches down under heavy guard

Israel President Isaac Herzog has landed in Sydney for a four-day state visit.

He and his wife Micha touched down at Sydney International Airport at about 6.45am amid a heavy police and security presence.

The couple were greeted on the tarmac by Israel’s Ambassador to Australia Amir Maimon and his wife, Tal, before being whisked away by large contingent of police and bodyguards.

A motorcade escorted what appeared to be an armoured vehicle carrying the President, flanked by motorcycle police.

Herzog is expected to meet the families of the 15 victims killed in the Bondi terrorist attack on December 14.

He will also visit Canberra and Melbourne.

Sydneysiders can expect travel disruptions, road closures, and a heavy police presence across the city during Israel President Isaac Herzog’s visit.

Multiple road closures will remain place until 2pm Thursday, while more than 500 officers will monitor Monday night’s protest at Sydney Town Hall.

‘We’ll have a significant police presence around the city,’ NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Peter McKenna told Sunrise on Monday.

‘We’ve got a head of state coming to visit us, so we have an obligation to make sure they’re kept safe.’

Palestine Action Group spokesman Josh Lees said that Monday night’s ‘peaceful’ protest outside Sydney Town Hall will go ahead, regardless of the outcome of a 11th-hour legal challenge regardless against ramped up police powers for Isaac Herzog’s visit Australian visit.

A last-minute Supreme Court hearing arguing the powers are excessive, unjustified and unlawful is scheduled before Justice Robertson Wright on Monday morning.

Mr Lee has repeatedly refused police requests to relocate the protest from Town Hall to Hyde Park, where weekly pro-Palestine protests have been held since October 2023.

‘We need to be seen. We need to be heard. And that’s why Town Hall is the most common location for that kind of protest because we want thousands of people to be able to gather and be seen in our city to oppose this terrible visit,’ Lees told Ten News Plus on Sunday.

‘Our government and our media establishment have tried to politicise this tragedy, horrific attack at Bondi and now this tour is a completely political tour.’

Mr Lees added that protesters do not want any confrontation as he called on NSW Police to facilitate their march from Town Hall to NSW Parliament.

‘The streets of Sydney belong to the people, not to the war criminal Israeli president,’ Mr Lees posted on Monday.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin said Mr Herzog’s visit would ‘lift the spirits of a pained community’.

‘We hope it will lead to a much-needed recalibration of bilateral relations between two historic allies,’ he said.

‘President Herzog is a patriot and a person of dignity and compassion and holds an office that is above party politics.’

But Judith Treanor, from Jews against the Occupation ’48, said the visit told the world that ‘genocide is compatible with Jewish identity’.

‘There are Jews who support Israel and Jews who don’t … Herzog must be investigated, (he’s) not welcomed here,’ she said.

The Jewish Council of Australia launched a major advertising campaign on Monday, printing a public letter condemning the visit – signed by more than 1000 Jewish Australians.

‘We refuse to let our collective grief be used to legitimise a leader whose rhetoric has been part of inciting a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and has contributed to the illegal annexation of the West Bank,’ Council executive officer Sarah Schwartz said on Monday.