Jewish Australians have remembered Israeli hostages held in Gaza and the 1,200 people who lost their lives in the 7 October Hamas terror attack, while condemning a "national blindness" that has given rise to "unprecedented" levels of hatred in Australia.
Two years on from the day that triggered the ongoing Israel-Gaza war, Muslims and the Palestinian diaspora in Australia have also marked the moment as the start of a bombardment that has killed about 67,000 Palestinians in Gaza.
Alex Ryvchin, the co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said while Australian Jews "will never forget nor forgive what Hamas did on this day two years ago, and what it continues to do, we live in hope that the hostages will soon be free".
But he also used the moment to condemn two years of the Jewish community experiencing "everything from the terrifying to the absurd".
Speaking with reporters on Tuesday morning, he said Jewish commemorations came at the same time as a pro-Palestinian rally was planned at Sydney Opera House on Sunday, but he claimed the protest would "incite yet more hatred against our community" at a "national landmark, at great public expense - and they will shred what little harmony remains in this society".
He said a "national blindness has allowed hatred in this country to rise to unprecedented levels, and has seen a foreign regime conduct acts of terror on our soil".
While the council supported the right to peaceful protest, he said "every right has its bounds".
He contrasted pro-Palestinian protest with the "quiet and dignified" Bring Them Home Now protests by Jewish women calling for the release of hostages.
Hamas abducted 251 people from Israel on 7 October 2023. Of those, 48 are still believed to be in captivity.
A list of the names of the hostages remaining in Gaza - many of whom are believed to be dead - was read aloud by members of the group alongside Ryvchin.
Elsewhere in Sydney, hundreds of members of the Jewish community came together for moments of sombre reflection in Dover Heights' Rodney Reserve and on a beach in the city's east at dawn, marking the moment Hamas's attack began.
Commemorations fall on the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, a traditional day of rest. A larger community vigil, with thousands expected to be in attendance in Sydney's east, is planned for Sunday evening.
Anthony Albanese said Australia stood with the Jewish community, "who feel the cold shadow of history's darkest chapter in any act of antisemitism".
"We will always stand against antisemitism, and so should everyone,"
the prime minister said.
He used the moment to underline Australia's support for Donald Trump's peace plan to end the conflict, for which negotiations are under way in Egypt.
"It is our duty to do everything in our power to see a just and lasting peace in the Middle East,"
he said.
The deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, said the day was "not a day for demonstrations".
"Today is a day for remembrance and commemoration ... This is a very difficult day for the Jewish community in Australia and it is a very solemn day,"
he told the ABC.
The Australian National Imams Council used the occasion to call for sanctions on Israel and "the immediate end to the genocide and the killing of innocent civilians".
In Melbourne, the defacing of a billboard with pro-Hamas graffiti was being looked into as a possible terror offence, Marles said.
The incident has been widely condemned, including by the New Israel Fund, which called the "deliberate provocation, timed to coincide with a day of immense grief for Israelis and Jews around the world ... an affront to our shared values".
Pro-Palestinian supporters are expected to hold a vigil in Melbourne on Tuesday evening while a protest for Gaza is planned in western Sydney.
On Monday, about 1,000 people attended a vigil by the Palestine Action Group at Sydney's Town Hall, according to Damian Ridgwell, an activist within the group.
Those in attendance included many of Palestinian and Middle Eastern backgrounds, representatives of the local Indigenous community, Jews against the occupation, and the Teachers Federation, Ridgwell said.
"We've had a great turnout of people who've come to commemorate two years of this genocide. A lot of people, as you would imagine, furious that Israel has been allowed to get away with committing this genocide for two years because of the complicity and inaction of governments like our own,"
he said.
"It's been part of the massive movement we've seen all around the country for the last two years that have been demanding our government actually act and sanction Israel and stop arming them in their genocide against the Palestinians."
Ridgwell said the group did not avoid putting the vigil on October 7 but chose Monday evening because it was a public holiday and more convenient.
"There is nothing wrong with Palestinians coming out to mark this. The attempts to try and say that people should not demonstrate on the year anniversary - this is a cynical attempt to try and dehumanise the many, many Palestinians who've been killed now by ruthless bombardment by the Israeli military,"
he said.
Ridgwell said despite reports about the ceasefire discussions, it was important to make the point that Israel was continuing to kill Palestinians.