A Sydney nurse has been charged with making threats after she appeared in an online video saying she would not treat Israeli patients. Sarah Abu Lebdeh, 26, was arrested Tuesday night and charged with the federal offenses of threatening violence to a group, using a carriage service to threaten to kill and using a carriage service to menace and harass, police said in a statement. The charges carried a potential maximum penalty of 22 years in prison.
Neither a defense lawyer nor Abu Lebdeh has commented on the charges. She was released on bail to appear in a Sydney court March 19. Abu Lebdeh and another nurse, Ahmed Rashid Nadir, were suspended from Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital on Feb. 12 over an online exchange the night before with Israeli influencer Max Veifer. Abu Lebdeh said she wouldn’t treat Israeli patients while Nadir suggested he had killed Israelis.
Nadir has yet to be interviewed by police. The hospital examined patient records and found no evidence that the nurses had harmed patients. Australia has experienced a surge antisemitic attacks and rhetoric that have roiled the nation as homes, offices and businesses have been vandalized and a school and two synagogues were torched in just over a year with crimes targeting Jews.
