brisbane, australia
—
The deadliest mass shooting in Australia in nearly 30 years targeted a Jewish family at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, one of the country’s most iconic locations, on the biggest day in the Jewish calendar.
Crowds of people gathered near the beach to celebrate Hanukkah, the festival of lights, and the event was widely promoted as a family festival for the Jewish community, promising free donuts and face painting and filling Bondi with “joy and light”.
But an hour before sunset, as tourists and residents were strolling along Campbell Parade and enjoying the final minutes of what should have been a glorious Sunday, two gunmen – the suspects revealed to be a father and son – opened fire from a bridge near Archer Park, a grassy area near the famous beach.
Witnesses said they heard what sounded like fireworks before horrifyingly realizing it was gunshots. The sound was almost unfamiliar in Australia, where strict firearms laws make firing rare. The last time so many people were killed was in the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, when a man armed with multiple weapons opened fire in a Tasmanian tourist town.
This attack was much closer to home. It happened in Sydney, one of the main centers of Jewish life in Australia. Sydney is home to a community of approximately 120,000 people out of a population of 27 million.
This indiscriminate massacre claimed the lives of multiple generations, from 10-year-old girls to Holocaust survivors.
Bondi’s famous white sand beach is touted as a place where visitors can soak up the sun and escape from another world with friends. In the aftermath of the attack, strollers were left abandoned on the lawn as parents grabbed their children, threw off their flip-flops and ran to escape the bullets and seek shelter.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, appearing before the nation late Sunday, called the attack an “evil act.”
“There is no place for this hatred, this violence, this terrorism in our country. Let me be clear: we will eradicate it,” he said.
Australian Jewish leaders have long called on the Australian government to do more to tackle rising anti-Semitism in the country.
Last year, Albanese appointed a special envoy to combat anti-Semitism, handing over the role to Gillian Segal, following massive public outcry in Australia over the scale of Israel’s war in Gaza and a spike in reports of attacks on Jewish sites and property.
Security patrols had been stepped up around Jewish sites in Sydney, but the Executive Council of Australian Jews (ECAJ), which represents 200 Jewish organizations, said Sunday’s attack proved that more needs to be done to keep Jews safe.
ECAJ co-CEO Alex Rivchin said the “writing was on the wall”, referring to the statistic that 1,654 anti-Semitic attacks were reported in Australia last year.
“Things like this were always going to happen. But at the same time, we’re not a country with a lot of gun violence… things like this don’t happen here,” he added.
Ms Albanese was asked directly on Sunday whether she was taking anti-Semitism seriously enough. “Yes, we have taken it seriously and continued to act,” he said.
On Monday, he listed the actions taken based on the report Segal submitted in July. That included millions of dollars spent on social cohesion projects and renovations of Jewish museums and education centers. University programs to increase the acceptance of Jewish students and staff are also being considered, he said.
Some of Mr. Segal’s recommendations have previously been criticized as overreaching and infringing on free speech rights.
The Albanon Government continues to walk a fine line to prevent tensions overseas from being brought to Australia. Along with the anti-Semitism envoy, it also appointed an anti-Islamophobia envoy to combat retaliation against the Palestinian community and its supporters.
The government took the unusual step of expelling Iran’s ambassador to Australia in August after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) was linked to two arson attacks on Jewish property in 2024. This is the first time Australia has expelled a foreign ambassador since World War II.
“They seek to cause harm and fear to Jewish Australians and sow hatred and division in our community,” Ms Albanese said at the time. However, at the same press conference, Australian Security and Intelligence Agency Director-General Mike Burgess said Iran could not be held responsible for any anti-Semitic attacks on mainland Australia.
The Bondi Beach massacre marks an unimaginable escalation in violence in a country with one of the lowest gun homicide rates in the world, and where mass shootings are common elsewhere.
Strict gun regulations make it difficult to legally obtain firearms, but the rules are likely to be further tightened following Monday’s national cabinet meeting.
State and territory leaders agreed to work on new rules that would restrict gun licenses to Australian citizens and set limits on the number of guns people can own and the length of time the licenses are valid. New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said on Monday state law would also change.
Authorities said the older of the two suspects, Sajid Akram, 50, was a member of a gun club, had a recreational hunting license and was entitled to the long weapon used in the attack.
Officials said on Tuesday that Sajid Akram had submitted an application in 2020 and was granted a gun license in 2023. NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said his previous application in 2015 had lapsed because he did not provide a photo.
Sajid Akram was killed by police at the scene, and his 24-year-old son Naveed remains in hospital and is likely to be charged, police said. Australians were left wondering how such a devastating attack could be planned and carried out in a public place without prior detection, and hundreds of police were deployed across the city to gather evidence.
Investigators late on Sunday raided a home in Bonnyrigg, Sydney’s western suburbs, believed to be linked to the Bondi attack. On Monday, a team of six forensic experts were seen arriving in full protective gear as police tape blared across the premises.
Local residents told CNN they were shocked that the suspect may have lived nearby.
Neighbor Renato Padilla said he was watching the aftermath of the tragedy in Bondi on TV when suddenly the street was filled with police cars.
“I was very worried last night that there was going to be a shootout or something like that, or because I was told in Bondi that there were explosives in the car,” Padilla said of a car parked near Campbell Parade in Bondi that was found with several improvised explosive devices attached to it.
NSW Police Commissioner Mr Runyon warned against local residents attempting to further destabilize a reeling city with acts aimed at revenge for Sunday’s shootings.
“This is a time of peace. Retaliation or action against any segment of any community is unacceptable,” he said.
But the fear now is that the tensions that the Australian government has been trying to keep away from the border are now more aggressive than ever. This comes as the community demands answers about what motivated the two men to commit such a heinous act and what authorities did, or failed to do, to stop it.
CNN’s Leah Mogul contributed reporting.
