‘An act of evil’: At least 16 dead, 40 injured in terrorist attack at Australia’s Bondi Beach
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Emergency personnel working at the scene of a shooting incident at Bondi Beach in Sydney on Dec 14.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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SYDNEY – A mass shooting by two gunmen on Dec 14
The authorities said the shooting, which was officially designated a terrorist attack, began at 6.47pm and targeted an event to celebrate the first night of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, which was attended by about 1,000 people.
“This is a targeted attack on Jewish Australians on the first day of Hanukkah, which should be a day of joy, a celebration of faith,” said Mr Albanese, who called the attack “an act of evil, anti-Semitism, terrorism that has struck the heart of our nation”.
“An attack on Jewish Australians is an attack on every Australian,” he added.
Singapore’s Prime Minister Lawrence Wong posted on Facebook on Dec 14
The attack follows a move by Australia’s security agencies in August 2024 to lift the country’s terror alert to “probable”
“More Australians are being radicalised and being radicalised more quickly,” Mr Burgess said.
In the past two years, there have been multiple attacks targeting synagogues and other Jewish sites, including two arson attacks that ASIO said were ordered by Iran.
The sudden outbreak of shooting on a warm summer evening sent tens of thousands of beachgoers rushing to safety as police and military descended on the beach.
Footage filmed by beachgoers showed two men with rifles calmly shooting at the Hanukkah event.
One footage showed a man at the beach who rushed at one of the gunmen
Police said one of the gunmen was killed and another was in a critical condition. ASIO and police said one of the gunmen had been known to them but was not known to be a threat. The authorities later found a car at the beach linked to one of the gunmen that was filled with improvised explosive devices.
One of the gunmen was named by local media as Naveed Akram, who lived in south-west Sydney. Police said they were still investigating whether there may have been a third gunman.
The suspected shooters lying on a pedestrian bridge in Sydney on Dec 14.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon told reporters on Dec 14 that the authorities had known of one of the shooters, but police had “very, very little knowledge” about him.
“So, he is not someone that we would have automatically been looking at at this time,” he said.
A woman who was at the Hanukkah event, named Vanessa, told Sky News: “It was mayhem. There were bodies all around. We haven’t stopped crying, just holding on to our babies. It was all around me. How I didn’t get shot was a miracle.”
A French tourist who had been in Sydney two days and was visiting Bondi Beach for the first time told ABC one of the gunmen pointed a rifle at him, and he hid behind a car. “My heart is dead today,” he said.
The attack marks the second-worst mass-shooting in Australia after an attack in Port Arthur, Tasmania, in 1996 by a crazed gunman, who killed 35 people. And it follows a mass stabbing in 2024
Mr Rahemath Pasha, an international student who has lived in Australia for two years, told The Sydney Morning Herald he held the hand of a female shooting victim as she waited for treatment. “It was the first time I saw a human killing in front of my eyes,” he said.
Ms Dana Farfan, a Bondi resident who was at the beach on Dec 14 with a friend, told ABC News the pair heard “a few bangs” and thought it must be fireworks from the Hanukkah event.
“Then we stop and I look over and see all these people running and screaming, and I said, ‘That is not fireworks, that is a shooting. We need to run,’” she said, adding that they entered a passing car and the driver sped them off to safety.
