A Sydney man has been ordered to surrender personalised number plates that appear to reference the October 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel.
A utility vehicle with the registration number "OCT7TH" was spotted in Sydney's west on Wednesday afternoon.
Tom, who asked for his surname to be withheld for fear of his safety, said he photographed the vehicle on the M7 motorway at Eastern Creek about 1:30pm.
"I knew [the number plate] was in reference to the massacre that occurred in Israel on that day," Tom, who is Jewish, told the ABC.
"I was so disturbed to the point of feeling sick," he said.
The ABC understands the vehicle is registered to a company in south west Sydney.
On Thursday, the transport department delivered a letter to the owner, who must hand in the plates within two business days to avoid the vehicle being deregistered.
Premier Chris Minns apologised and said the number plates were issued in error.
"I don't know what kind of sick person would have a personalised number plate for such a horrific massacre," Mr Minns said.
"To effectively celebrate the killing of over 1,000 people in a shocking terrorist incident is disgusting."
Hamas militants killed 1,200 people and took 253 hostages in southern Israel on October 7.
The government confirmed the application for the plates was made on November 29 and that the plates were issued on December 12.
A complaint was made on January 23 to the company myPlates, which produces the plates, but Transport for NSW was not alerted until Wednesday.
Roads minister John Graham said the private provider had committed to "updating their system" of notifying the department about offensive plates.
Mr Graham said the department had already shortened the process of removing such plates last year after other offensive combinations of letters and numbers emerged, including "88SIEG", "NAZ111", and "EZ80LA".
He said the previous process of repeated notification letters could take up to a month.
"I didn't regard that as acceptable," the minister said.
'The system isn't perfect'
According to government data from January to August 2023, 446 offensive registration numbers were picked up before the plates were made.
Forty-six complaints were received from the public and 17 plates were recalled.
"The system isn't perfect. Sometimes they do slip through," Mr Graham said.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Peter Wertheim said the measures taken by transport authorities had "clearly been inadequate".
"Licence plates on vehicles should never be permitted to be used as a sick political advertisement," Mr Wertheim said.