Two gunmen dressed in black opened fire at the crowd at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Sunday where hundreds of people gathered to celebrate the first day of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah.
New South Wales Police say 12 people have been killed and 29 taken to hospital – including a child. The event had more than 1,000 in attendance, police say. According to witnesses, around 50 shots were fired. The death toll is expected to increase, as many of the survivors are critical.
One of the two shooters has been identified as Naveed Akram, a man from the city’s south-west. The Australian authorities said Akram’s home in the suburb of Bonnyrigg was being raided by police on Sunday evening.
An improvised explosive device was found in one of the suspect’s cars. The police are probing the incident and a “number of suspicious items located in the vicinity”.
The gunmen opened fire just after 6.30 p.m. local time as hundreds of people attended the ‘Chanukah by the Sea’ event to celebrate the start of the Jewish festival. The Australian Broadcasting Corp. showed footage of two black-clad gunmen firing on people from a footbridge near the beach. In another clip, a bystander is shown tackling and disarming one of the gunmen.
Around 2.17 pm IST (7.47 pm Australian time), New South Wales police police said in a post on X that they were responding to a “developing incident” at Bondi Beach. “Anyone at the scene should take shelter,” they warned.
Recounting horror of the shooting, an eyewitness told AFP that they were shocked to hear the shots which felt like coming from a powerful weapon. “We heard the shots. It was shocking, it felt like 10 minutes of just bang, bang, bang. It seemed like a powerful weapon,” Camilo Diaz, a 25-year-old student from Chile, was quoted as saying by AFP. A British tourist told AFP he saw “two shooters in black” after the gunfire broke out. “There was a shooting, two shooters in black with semi-automatic rifles,” Timothy Brant-Coles told AFP, saying he saw multiple people who had been shot and wounded. Another witness, 30-year-old local resident Harry Wilson, told the Sydney Morning Herald he saw “at least 10 people on the ground and blood everywhere”.
New South Wales police said in a later update. “Ten people have been confirmed dead, including a man believed to be one of the shooters. The second alleged shooter is in a critical condition. Police said one of the gunmen was killed in retaliatory firing.
Alex Ryvchin, co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry – a body representing the Australian Jewish community – says his family and friends are “among the dead” at the Bondi Beach attack. Ryvchin told BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend that one of the people killed “is a very, very dear friend of mine who became a father again about a month ago”. He described his friend as “the most luminous, present, joyful human being that I think I have ever met and now his son, born a month ago, will be raised without a father”. He also recalled consoling a four-year-old girl “with her face painted like a lioness” at the scene, who had become separated from her parents during the incident.
Ryvchin said: “We were fearful for the worst, that her parents were among the victims. Fortunately, we were able to reunite them shortly after. People planned to massacre that little girl and people like her.”
Mal Lanyon, the New South Wales Police Commissioner, has declared the shooting a “terrorist incident”.
A bystander who tackled and disarmed a gunman at the Bondi Beach is being hailed a hero. Footage circulating on social media shows a man in a car park wearing a white shirt running up to a man in a dark shirt who is holding a rifle. He then tackles the armed man from behind, wrenching the rifle from him with his hands before pointing the gun back at the man. While the identity of the man was not immediately known, Chris Minns, the premier of New South Wales state, said it was the “most unbelievable scene I’ve ever seen”. “A man walking up to a gunman who had fired on the community and single-handedly disarming him, putting his own life at risk to save the lives of countless other people.”
“That man is a genuine hero, and I’ve got no doubt that there are many, many people alive tonight as a result of his bravery.”
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said the scenes in Bondi are “shocking and distressing”.
“Police and emergency responders are on the ground working to save lives. My thoughts are with every person affected. I have just spoken to the AFP Commissioner and with the NSW Premier. We are working with the NSW Police and will provide further updates as more information is confirmed. I urge people in the vicinity to follow information from the NSW Police,” he said in a statement.
Israel President Isaac Herzog called the shooting a “very cruel attack on Jews who went to light the first candle of Hanukkah on Bondi Beach”. In a speech at an event in Jerusalem, Herzog called on Australia to “fight against the enormous wave of antisemitism which is plaguing Australian society”.
Former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan says he was locked in a restaurant in Bondi during the attack, calling it “scary”.
“Being locked in a restaurant in Bondi was scary.. Now home safe,” the 51-year-old posted on X. He is in Australia working as a pundit for the Ashes series. “But thanks so much to the emergency services and the guy who confronted the terrorist .. thoughts with all who have been affected … xxx”, he said.
(Agencies; Picture Courtesy: AP)
