Herzog protest chaos as people pepper sprayed, arrested

A massive protest against Israel's visiting president has descended into chaos as police and protesters clashed, with pepper spray deployed and several arrests made.

Sydney's Town Hall was heaving with protesters as every major city held rallies opposing Isaac Herzog's Australian tour.

Despite a Supreme Court ruling barring a planned protest in the city on Monday, the rally went on, with thousands spilling outside the square into surrounding streets.

But it quickly descended into chaos when police ordered protesters to disperse before deploying pepper spray and physically moving on demonstrators.

People attempting to leave were prevented from moving as the square turned into a stand-still.

Police were seen to have formed a front and rushed at people to forcibly disperse them, with multiple arrests made and journalists also ordered to move on.

Those in the harbour city had planned to march through Sydney's main thoroughfares before the Supreme Court rejected a challenge to police powers.

Protest organisers Palestine Action Group had attempted to overturn a NSW government declaration Mr Herzog's visit was a major event.

The declaration grants police extra powers to bolster officer numbers, search anyone in the declared event area and prevent them from entering ahead of a rally at Sydney's Town Hall planned for the evening.

"Herzog's visit is an affront to all Australians that care about human rights and peace and justice," Amnesty International Australia's Mohamed Duar told the rally.

Former Australian of the Year Grace Tame, Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi, First Nations advocate Lizzie Jarrett and Jewish academic Antony Loewenstein spoke to a cheering sea of red, white and green Palestinian flags.

"Israel's actions endanger all of us, including Jews, because what Israel is doing claims to be in our name," he said.

"Believe me when I say, it is not in my name."

About 500 officers watched on from perimeter and surrounding rooftops, while the helicopters hovered overhead before demanding protesters to move on after the event

In the Melbourne CBD, Monday evening's rush hour turned into a stand still as thousands of protesters blocked some of the busiest intersections to denounce Mr Herzog's visit.

Speaker Omar Hassan rallied a sea of demonstrators waving Palestinian flags outside Flinders Street Station, who chanted for the Israeli president to be tried in the International Criminal Court, before they marched through the city.

"We cannot stay silent while a war criminal tours our country, while this government rolls the red carpet out for someone who has literally signed off on the mass murder of children, men and women," he said.

Independent senator Lidia Thorpe decried the federal government's decision to invite Mr Herzog to Australia as "a joke".

"If you want us to be respectful, you do not invite anybody to this country who commits genocide," she said.

Less than 45 minutes before the protest was due to begin in Sydney, NSW Supreme Court Justice Robertson Wright dismissed the challenge to the NSW government's declaration.

Lawyers for the protesters told the court that the government's declaration was too broad and did not meet legal requirements because no participants or geographic area were specified.

However, the government's barrister Brendan Lim SC argued the declaration was not made to suppress Monday evening's protest but rather to relocate it to Hyde Park, where Palestine Action Group has conducted hundreds of rallies.

Evidence suggests that separating protesters from mourners and the Israeli president was the motivation, Justice Wright noted.

The NSW government passed laws following December's Bondi Beach terror attack which restricted protections typically granted to authorised protests.

Those temporary powers - which can be extended for up to three months after a terror event - were fortified by the major event declaration announced on Saturday.

Mr Herzog's role is largely ceremonial, but he has sparked outrage for being photographed signing an Israeli artillery shell.

A United Nations inquiry found his comments after the Hamas terror attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 - in which he described Palestinians as an "entire nation out there that is responsible" - to reasonably be interpreted as incitement for genocide.