Gunmen kill 15 in attack on Hanukkah celebration on Sydney’s Bondi Beach

SYDNEY — Two gunmen opened fire during a Hanukkah celebration on Sydney’s Bondi Beach, killing 15 people, including a child, officials said Monday, in what Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called an act of antisemitic terrorism that struck at the heart of the nation. The shooters were father and son, authorities said.

The massacre at one of Australia’s most popular beaches — in an area with a large Jewish community — followed a wave of antisemitic attacks that have roiled the country over the last year, although the authorities didn’t suggest those episodes and Sunday’s shooting were connected. It is the deadliest shooting in almost three decades in a country with strict gun control laws.

One gunman, 50, was fatally shot by police. The other shooter, his 24-year-old son, was wounded and being treated at a hospital, said Mal Lanyon, the New South Wales police commissioner.

Police said one gunman was known to security services, but Lanyon said authorities had no indication of a planned attack.

Those killed were between 10 and 87 years old, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns told reporters. At least 38 others were injured in the attack.

“What we saw yesterday was an act of pure evil, an act of antisemitism, an act of terrorism on our shores in an iconic Australian location, Bondi Beach, that is associated with joy, associated with families gathering, associated with celebrations,” Albanese said Monday.

“It is forever tarnished by what has occurred.”

The shooting targeted a Jewish celebration

The violence erupted at the end of a hot summer day when thousands had flocked to Bondi Beach, including hundreds who had gathered for the Chanukah by the Sea event celebrating the start of the eight-day Hanukkah festival.

The festivities included face painting and a petting zoo. Then mayhem erupted.

Chabad, an Orthodox Jewish movement that runs outreach centers around the world and sponsors public events during major Jewish holidays, identified one of the dead as Rabbi Eli Schlanger, assistant rabbi at Chabad of Bondi and a key organizer of the event.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced that a French citizen, identified as Dan Elkayam, was among those killed.

None of the victims have been publicly named by Australian authorities. The gunmen haven’t been officially named either.

But stories of the victims began to emerge in local news outlets Monday. Larisa Kleytman told reporters outside St Vincent’s Hospital that her husband, Alexander, was among the dead, according to the Australian newspaper.

The couple were both Holocaust survivors.

Police said emergency services were called about 6:45 p.m., responding to reports of shots being fired. Video taken by onlookers showed people in bathing suits running from the water as shots were heard.

Separate video appeared to show two men with long guns firing from a footbridge leading to the beach. One dramatic clip broadcast on Australian television showed a man appearing to tackle and disarm one of the gunmen, before pointing the man’s weapon at him, then setting the gun on the ground.

Minns called the man, identified by relatives to Australian media as fruit shop owner Ahmed al Ahmed, a “genuine hero.”

Witnesses fled and hid

Arsen Ostrovsky, a lawyer attending the Hanukkah ceremony with his wife and daughters, was grazed in the head by a bullet. Ostrovsky said he moved from Israel to Australia two weeks ago to work for a Jewish advocacy group.

“What I saw today was pure evil, just an absolute bloodbath. Bodies strewn everywhere,” he told the Associated Press in an email from the hospital. “I never thought [this] would be possible here in Australia.”

Lachlan Moran, 32, of Melbourne told the AP he was waiting for his family nearby when he heard shots.

“I sprinted as quickly as I could,” Moran said. He said he heard shooting off and on for about five minutes. “Everyone just dropped all their possessions and everything and were running and people were crying and it was just horrible.”

Australian leaders express shock and grief

Albanese vowed that the violence would be met by “a moment of national unity where Australians across the board will embrace their fellow Australians of Jewish faith.”

Some of his political opponents and Israel’s government accused him of not having done enough to prevent such a horror.

Australia, a country of 28 million people, is home to about 117,000 Jews, according to official figures. Antisemitic incidents, including assaults, vandalism, threats and intimidation, surged more than threefold in the country during the year after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel launched a war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip in response, the government’s special envoy to combat antisemitism, Jillian Segal, reported in July.

Last year, Australia was rocked by a spate of antisemitic attacks in Sydney and Melbourne. Synagogues and cars were torched, businesses and homes graffitied and Jews attacked in those cities, where 85% of the nation’s Jewish population lives.

Albanese in August blamed Iran for two of the attacks and cut diplomatic ties to Tehran.

Pastor Matt Graham was conducting a service at Bondi Anglican Church when panicked people began entering for shelter. He said antisemitism has been brewing in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, including Bondi, where the Jewish community is centered.

Israel urged Australia’s government to address crimes targeting Jews. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he warned Australia’s leaders months ago in a letter about the dangers of failing to take action against antisemitism. He claimed Australia’s decision — in line with scores of other countries — to recognize a Palestinian state “pours fuel on the antisemitic fire.”

“Your government did nothing to stop the spread of antisemitism in Australia ... and the result is the horrific attacks on Jews we saw today,” Netanyahu said.

Investigation to come

Authorities were not looking for anyone else in connection with the massacre, said Lanyon, the police commissioner. Police pledged a thorough investigation, he added.

Two improvised explosive devices were found at the scene. Bomb disposal experts rendered them safe.

Lanyon described them as “rudimentary” devices that would have been detonated by a wick rather than a phone or electronically.

Shooting deaths in Australia are rare

Minns said there would “almost certainly” be gun law changes after the massacre. The 50-year-old gunman who was shot dead was found to have six firearms when law enforcement raided the property where he’d been staying, police said.

Questions about how he was able to acquire them gathered pace Monday, in part because mass shootings in Australia are extremely rare. A 1996 massacre in the Tasmanian town of Port Arthur, where a lone gunman killed 35 people, prompted the government to drastically tighten gun laws, making it much more difficult to acquire firearms.

Significant mass shootings this century included two murder-suicides with death tolls of five people in 2014 and seven in 2018, in which gunmen killed their own families and themselves.

In 2022, six people were killed in a shootout between police and Christian extremists at a rural property in Queensland state.

King Charles III said he and Queen Camilla were “appalled and saddened by the most dreadful antisemitic terrorist attack.” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said on X he was horrified, and his “heart is with the Jewish community worldwide.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a post on X: “The United States strongly condemns the terrorist attack in Australia targeting a Jewish celebration. Antisemitism has no place in this world.”

Gelineau, Graham-McLay and McGuirk write for the Associated Press and reported from Sydney; Wellington, New Zealand; and Melbourne, respectively. AP writer Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv and Mustakim Hasnath in London contributed to this report.