NSW Police Engage in Campaign of Extreme Harassment Against Prominent Palestinian Activist

Ibrahim “Bob” Mouammar is a well-known participant in the Sydney Palestine solidarity movement, and he’s respected by much of the community. So, when footage of him was posted on social media being surrounded by a sizable number of NSW police officers asking absurd questions about what he was doing at Bunnings in Rose Bay on Tuesday, 19 May 2026, it was no wonder it went viral.

This was textbook ‘Police Harassment 101’, except there was a difference, as instead of a couple of officers on the beat profiling a random for a bit of questioning, this was a full-scale operation involving at least five police vehicles, a senior police officer, general duties officers and then riot squad cops decked out in their paramilitary uniforms, suddenly appearing in a back street.

Mouammar was at Bunnings on Gadigal land at Rose Bay to pick up some materials for the project he’s been working on for the past two weeks at Bellevue Hill. Bob is a French polisher, and it was his first time at the hardware store that is six minutes’ drive from the job. And it was also the first time he’d been driving in the local area, besides coming to and from his western Sydney home every day.

After ordering the Palestinian man, who grew up in Lebanon, to pull over, police started asking why he was in the area. The multiple officers involved told him there had been a report about a van suspiciously driving around in the vicinity. The senior officer asked him to explain himself or to leave, and the numerous officers appeared to be taunting him with idiotic orders considering the situation.

The footage shows about a dozen officers standing around, some getting right up in Bob’s face at times, even after he’d explained he was there for work. And understandably, the-father-of-three was panicked, and he ended up on the ground in pain due to a recent operation exacerbated by the event, so an ambulance was called, and his workmates came to pick up his van and the materials.

For the crime of driving with keffiyeh

“They scared me. I was really scared. It was the way that they stopped me,” Mouammar told Sydney Criminal Lawyers. “They’d blocked both sides of the road and were waiting for me at the exit from Bunnings. There was one car on the left side at the head of the street and one at the other end of the street. Then there were three police cars in the middle blocking the driveway.”

As Bob drove out of the Bunnings into the back street, he found himself blocked in. He was then made to pull his van over to the side. He got out and was asked to identify himself, which he did in handing over his driver licence. Then the senior officer asked why he was in Rose Bay, and he explained that he didn’t have to tell them as he had a right to be there regardless.

Based on the alleged reporting of a van driving around suspiciously, the police could pull Bob over under section 36A of the Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2002, and under section 14 of the LEPRA, they could require him to identify himself. But Bob didn’t have to explain what he was doing, as per his right to silence protected under section 89 of the Evidence Act 1995 (NSW).

The senior police officer then told Mouammar that if he didn’t explain what he was doing in the area, then she was going to order him to move on. However, the circumstances involved didn’t appear to have provided her with any reason to issue him with a move on order, according to the police powers contained in section 197 of the LEPRA.

Incidentally, Bob had just explained the reason as to why he was in the area clearly into his phone as he was recording and at a level audible enough for the officers standing right by his side to hear him.

“They said I was driving around the area,” Bob said on Thursday. “They can see the footage. I have been there for two weeks. Every day, I come from western Sydney, the same way. In the mornings, I come at 6 o’clock and I leave at 3.30-4 o’clock. I’ve never been in the area driving around. It was the first time in two weeks that I drove to Bunnings.”

“Usually, I come from my house to the project, and I don’t move my van.”

Smothered into submission

One very telling part of the footage shows Mouammar raising his voice as he continues to ask questions about why he’s suddenly been ambushed by the NSW police in this manner, and he is told to calm down, although he wasn’t shouting. But as his camera moves from side to side, he is being surrounded by an extreme number of police given the circumstances.

The footage shows two officers standing in front of him in riot squad gear, and behind them are standing three more riot squad officers.  Then the senior officer is on one side of him, with another general duties officer on the other side. And there is another cop leaning into a police car sorting something out on the left, whilst another officer is further back directing traffic away from the scene.

Bob also explained to SCL that he felt like the officers were looking for an excuse to arrest him, so he was extra conscious about not providing them with any reason to do so.

Another strange moment occurred when Mouammar pointed to one of the police and questioned why, after he had been pulled up, the officer pointed with his finger and said, “Yes, that is him”. None of the officers denied this had been the case, and when the Palestinian man pushed the point, the senior officer suggested the man had said this because he was actually identifying the van.

Putting in the boots

The police officers had asked Mouammar to pull up on the side of a road, which doesn’t have a proper footpath, as it is lined with garage doors, which open straight onto the street, at the back of houses. Yet, at one point when Bob stepped off the sidewalk area and onto the road, an officer in full riot gear instantly started ordering the civilian to get off the road because he was obstructing it.

That riot officer also suggested that Bob was overreacting because the police had pulled him over for a “simple conversation”. The senior officer added that “we spoke to you normally”. However, these heavily armed officers – riot squad, a senior officer, general duties – had blocked off an entire street using their multiple police vehicles and then surrounded Bob all in order to have this simple chat.

After Mouammar had then sat down upon the sidewalk, as he’d unsurprisingly been panicked to the point of having to do so, an officer then proceeded to order him to move his van because it was blocking someone’s driveway.

So, Mouammar then explained that they’d told him to park his van there, and his workers were coming to collect it because he could no longer drive in the state he was in and that was why an ambulance had been called, and they were all standing around waiting for the arrival of said ambulance.

The officer then said it was a criminal offence to block a driveway and threatened to give him a ticket.

And to top the whole large-scale police harassment event off, Bob then butted out his cigarette on the ground right next to his phone, so he could dispose of it later, yet three riot squad officers instantly burst into a chorus about how he couldn’t throw his cigarette butt on the ground and ordered him to pick it up. And that one riot officer then threatened him with two tickets.

Amongst a rising anti-Palestine climate

NSW Greens MP Jenny Leong has been in contact with Bob, and she said she’ll be raising this matter in NSW parliament. Mouammar has a meeting with his lawyer next Monday, and they’ll be discussing the matter at that time. And as for why the incident occurred in the first place, there is no clear explanation besides the suggested “suspicious van driving” report.

The Palestinian man is a well-known and vocal activist, and this is even to the point that one of the general duty officers present at the backstreet blockade event, having acknowledged that she knew him by name from his attending the Palestine Action Group protest marches and her having been policing them.

But the large-scale police harassment operation did happen in a political climate that includes a 31-month-long campaign involving NSW authorities attempting to demonis the pro-Palestine movement, despite its chief aim being to oppose the brutal genocide that Israel is continuing to perpetrate against the Palestinians of Gaza.

This incident also happened in the wake of the 9 February 2026 protest against the official visit of Israeli president Isaac Herzog, which involved 3,000 NSW police officers blatantly bashing and brutalising the 20,000-odd pro-Palestinian protesters.

And NSW premier Chris Minns, NSW police minister Yasmin Catley and NSW police minister Mal Lanyon have all refused to apologise for the police violence and instead, have stated that officers did as they were told, making this state-sanctioned police excessive use of force.

Indeed, this extremely docile display of NSW Police Force harassment that was perpetrated against Bob on Tuesday 9 May has come at a time of rising state-sponsored anti-Palestinian sentiment in general.