Eleven individuals are lifeless after gunmen focused the attendees of a Jewish neighborhood occasion on Sunday in Australia’s Bondi Seaside. One other 29 folks had been hospitalized with accidents, together with a toddler and two officers, based on police. One suspected gunman was additionally killed. He was recognized as Naveed Akram, 24, a Pakistani nationwide based mostly in Sydney, based on a U.S. intelligence briefing and a driver’s license offered by Australian police.
Australian officers and worldwide leaders have condemned it as an antisemitic terrorist assault.
Police mentioned they count on the dying toll to climb. Here’s what we all know to date.
Gunfire broke out at a Hanukkah celebration
The assault occurred throughout a Jewish vacation celebration held to mark the primary day of Hanukkah. Greater than 1,000 folks had been on the seashore, in a suburb of Sydney, when photographs rang out, mentioned New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon, who formally declared the taking pictures a “terrorist incident.”
Quite a few Australian officers have characterised the taking pictures as focused. New South Wales Premier Chris Minns mentioned it “was designed to focus on Sydney’s Jewish neighborhood.”
“This can be a focused assault on Jewish Australians on the primary day of Hanukkah — which needs to be a day of pleasure, a celebration of religion — an act of evil antisemitism, terrorism, that has struck the guts of our nation,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese mentioned at a information convention.
Video footage recorded by civilians confirmed frightened crowds of beachgoers fleeing the world as gunshots went off within the background.
Neither officers nor police have recognized the victims of the assault. Chabad, a worldwide group representing a department of ultra-Orthodox Judaism, mentioned Rabbi Eli Schlanger, with Chabad of Bondi, was among the many lifeless, the Related Press reported. Schlanger had been a key organizer of the Hanukkah occasion on Bondi Seaside, based on the group.
No less than two suspects
Australian authorities have mentioned a minimum of two gunmen had been suspected of finishing up the lethal mass taking pictures, a uncommon prevalence in a rustic the place gun violence is rare.
Lanyon mentioned the deceased suspect was beforehand identified to the New South Wales police power. Along with the gunman killed on the scene of the assault, one other was hospitalized with critical accidents, he mentioned. The surviving gunman has been taken into custody. The commissioner additionally mentioned officers had been investigating whether or not a “third offender” was concerned.
A person has been lauded as a hero and praised by the police commissioner for tackling one suspect and disarming him in dramatic video footage recorded by a bystander alongside Campbell Parade, a principal avenue that wraps round Bondi Seaside. Within the footage, the person might be seen crouched in hiding behind a parked automotive earlier than wrestling the suspect and taking his weapon.
Australian information shops have recognized the person seen disarming the suspect as fruit store proprietor Ahmed al Ahmed, citing his family.
Officers discovered explosive units
Shortly after the taking pictures occurred, officers who responded to the scene found a car alongside Campbell Parade and believed there have been a number of improvised explosive units inside it, Lanyon mentioned. The car was linked to the deceased gunman, based on the police commissioner. A rescue bomb disposal crew was on the scene.
Rising antisemitism in Australia
Though Australia hardly ever experiences mass shootings, after implementing stringent gun reform legal guidelines within the wake of a lethal 1996 bloodbath in Tasmania’s Port Arthur, antisemitic incidents have been on the rise within the nation because the warfare in Gaza started in 2023.
The Australian authorities appointed particular envoys in 2024 to deal with spiking antisemitism, in addition to Islamophobia, in its communities. However assaults nonetheless occurred this 12 months. One, in July, concerned an arsonist who set hearth to the door of a synagogue in Melbourne, whereas worshippers had been inside.
World leaders react
The assault on Bondi Seaside drew widespread condemnation from leaders throughout the globe.
Within the U.S., Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke out towards antisemitism in a social media submit, which mentioned: “Antisemitism has no place on this world. Our prayers are with the victims of this horrific assault, the Jewish neighborhood, and the folks of Australia.”
Rubio joined officers from quite a few nations, together with the UK, France, Germany, Finland, New Zealand, India, Qatar and Pakistan, who equally shared remarks expressing sympathy for the victims and solidarity with Jewish communities, in addition to denouncing antisemitism.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was among the many officers in his nation who responded publicly to the assault in Australia. In a assertion launched by his workplace, Netanyahu criticized Albanese for supporting a Palestinian state and mentioned such help fuels antisemitism.
“Your name for a Palestinian state pours gas on the antisemitic hearth,” Netanyahu’s assertion learn, quoting a letter that the Israeli prime minister mentioned he wrote to Albanese in August. “It rewards Hamas terrorists. It emboldens those that menace Australian Jews and encourages the Jew hatred now stalking your streets.”
