The owners of a popular Sydney fish and chip shop targeted by highly damaging false accusations over social media say they remain in “shock” over what happened.
The eatery in Rose Bay, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, became embroiled in an online storm after a social media post alleging the owners supported Hamas went viral.
The militant terror group was responsible for the devastating attack on southern Israel on October 7, killing at least 1400 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli officials.
The business, owned by father and son duo Michael and William Koutsoukis, characterised the incident on Facebook as “misinformation”.
William Koutsoukis told news.com.au that the tight-knit family were still “completely shaken by it”, admitting his father cried after hearing about the false allegations.
But he said they were also humbled by the community support.
“The next day we had so much love and support with people saying, ‘We don’t believe it’,” Mr Koutsoukis said. “We were blessed and humbled by it.”
He described the Jewish community as “his community” and said the “allegations broke his heart” because they were so untrue.
As much as 90 per cent of the business’ customers are Jewish, making the allegations particularly bewildering.
NSW Jewish Board of Deputies acting CEO Michael Gencher showed his public support for the business on Thursday, eating lunch there with staff who joined him.
According to The Daily Telegraph, he urged the community to put the unfortunate incident behind them.
Thursday marked the 27th day of the conflict sparked by the October 7 attacks when Hamas terrorists stormed the border, killing 1400 people and kidnapping more than 240, Israeli officials say.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza claims more than 9000 people have been killed in Israel’s subsequent attacks, including 3760 children. Those figures have not been independently verified.