Twelve people killed in Bondi Beach Hanukkah terror attack

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a late-night news conference that the shooting was a “targeted attack” on the Jewish community. He described the incident as a “vicious act of anti-Semitism and terrorism that struck at the heart of our nation” and signaled a relentless crackdown on anti-Semitism.

He added: “We will eliminate him.”

Australia’s Jewish population is estimated at 116,967 in 2021, one of the 10 largest countries in the world. Bondi, located in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, is among the country’s main Jewish communities.

New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon told reporters at a press conference that one of the gunmen was killed and the other was in critical condition in hospital, describing the incident as a terrorist attack. He added that at least 29 people, including two police officers, were injured and taken to hospitals across Sydney.

This incident is the deadliest mass shooting in Australia since a gunman killed 35 people in Port Arthur, Tasmania, on April 28, 1996.

“There are nights that tear at the soul of our nation,” Albanese said. “In this moment of darkness, we must be each other’s light.”

The gunmen opened fire just after 6:45 p.m. local time, as more than 1,000 people attended a Chanukah by the Sea event on a warm summer evening.

One victim said he only arrived in Australia in recent days from Israel, where he had lived for 13 years, to help Sydney’s Jewish community deal with anti-Semitic incidents. Speaking to Channel 9 television, his face covered in blood and his head wrapped in bandages, he said the community would come closer together in the wake of the shooting.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation showed footage of gunmen dressed in black shooting people from a pedestrian bridge near the beach. In another unconfirmed clip, a bystander is seen tackling and disarming one of the gunmen, actions that New South Wales state Premier Chris Means described as truly heroic, saying the intervention likely saved many lives.

Police Commissioner Lanyon said that an improvised explosive device was found in a car linked to the dead criminal. He added that the police are also investigating whether there is a third criminal.

Mike Burgess, director general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, said the national terrorism level rating remained at “probable” despite Sunday’s incident.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said the shooting “is the result of the anti-Semitic rampage in the streets of Australia over the past two years,” adding that “the Australian government, which has received countless warning signals, must come to its senses!”

Speaking at an event to recognize the extraordinary achievements of immigrants to Israel at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said the shooting was a “brutal attack on Jews who went to light the first Chanukah candle on Bondi Beach.”

Several synagogues in Australia have been targeted, along with Jewish businesses and homeowners, following the outbreak of conflict in Gaza due to the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

In October last year, two masked men set fire to the Louis Continental kitchen in Bondi after dousing it with an accelerant. The following month, attackers spray-painted anti-Israel graffiti and set fire to a vehicle in Woollahra – a suburb with a large Jewish community – damaging more than 10 cars and several buildings.

Last December, perpetrators stormed the Adas Israel Synagogue in Ripponlea, Victoria, and spread rapidly in what police described as a possible terrorist attack. Days later, another graffiti and arson attack targeted a street in Woollahra that the perpetrators had chosen because it was considered a Jewish area.

Around the same time, about 20 members of a neo-Nazi group gathered outside a government building in Melbourne, holding a banner reading “Jews hate freedom.”

Albanese said Australia this year revealed intelligence that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had directed at least two arson attacks last year – including the Bondi restaurant and Melbourne synagogue incidents – prompting Canberra to expel Iran’s ambassador, the first such move since World War Two.

Weapon crimes

The Bondi attack refocused attention on the flaws in Australia’s gun control framework, a system often cited internationally as a model. However, it is still characterized by uneven implementation.

A January report from the Australian Institute concluded that not all states and territories met basic standards for effective oversight, including transparent reporting of data and limits on the number of firearms an individual can legally own.

The Australian Institute report also showed how concentrated gun ownership has become: the average license holder owns more than four firearms, and two suburban Sydney residents own more than 300 each.

Using scorecards to rank jurisdictions on measures such as ownership caps and data availability, the institute assessed New South Wales – home to Sydney – as the strongest performer on transparency, even as broader national shortcomings persist.