At least 15 people were killed and 42 injured were hospitalized in a terror attack that targeted a Chanukah party on Bondi Beach in Sydney’s eastern suburbs on Sunday, according to Australian authorities and local media reports on Sunday morning local time.
Those who were killed were between the ages of 10 and 87, according to the Australian public broadcaster ABC, which cited Chris Minns, premier of New South Wales.
The shooters are believed to be a father and son, according to ABC, which reported that the alleged terrorist Naveed Akram, 24, is under police guard in the hospital, and police shot and killed his father, 50, on Sunday.
The commissioner of the New South Wales police said that officers found “two ‘basic’ explosive devices” at the shooter’s home on Sunday night and that the “explosives had not been activated,” according to ABC.
When a reporter asked the New South Wales premier about reports that police froze rather than returning fire, Minns said that “I’m not going to go into the circumstances of police officers that returned fire, but I can tell you their bravery, their courage in these circumstances saved countless lives and I would urge everyone not to jump to conclusions,” ABC reported.
The attack took place at a Chanukah celebration attended by hundreds of people and organized by the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. Amichai Chikli, Israel’s minister of diaspora affairs and combating antisemitism, said that he was in “continuous contact” with Australian Jewish leaders.
Chabad Lubavitch world headquarters stated that it is “devastated and heartbroken by the barbaric terror attack against a public Chanukah celebration in Sydney, Australia, on the first night of Chanukah.”
“We grieve for the families whose loved ones were murdered, among them Chabad emissary Rabbi Elie Schlanger, who led the Chanukah celebration with the people of Bondi Beach,” it said. “Rabbi Schlanger devoted his life to sharing Jewish warmth, faith and community with others. He was doing exactly what he had been sent to do—bringing light and joy into the public square—when his life was cut down.”
It added that the rabbi “leaves his wife, Chayale, and their children, including a 2-month-old baby” and that “we mourn him as family and stand with his loved ones and his community in their immeasurable loss.”
“This was a treacherous act of terror—an attack on community, on goodness and on light itself,” the movement said. “It reflects a climate in which Jew-hatred has been allowed to grow and to turn violent. That reality must be confronted.”
Australian Prime Minister Antony Albanese told a press conference following the attack that “this afternoon, there has been a devastating terrorist incident at Bondi at the Chanukah by the Sea celebration.”
“This is a targeted attack on Jewish Australians on the first day of Chanukah, which should be a day of joy, a celebration of faith,” the premier said.
“An act of evil antisemitism, terrorism, that has struck the heart of our nation,” he added. “An attack on Jewish Australians is an attack on every Australian.”
Alex Ryvchin, co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, told Sydney radio station 2GB that the group’s director of media was injured in the attack, which he called “deliberate and very targeted.
“Hundreds of people were gathered. It’s a family event,” he said. “They heard, like, dozens of popping sounds, and people just started running, running over barricades, grabbing their children. It was mayhem.”
New South Wales state opposition leader Kellie Sloane, who was at the beach, told Sky News that the shooting a “horrific attack on our way of life, a very targeted attack on our Jewish community.”
“I was there when the shooting was still happening, and there was so many people,” he told the outlet. “We were trying to we were trying to support people. We were trying to save people.”
Four months ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Albanese to confront what he called a “tsunami of antisemitism” that had spread in Australia since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.
Netanyahu also slammed the decision by his Australian counterpart to recognize a Palestinian state while the Jewish state was still fighting “a war on behalf of Western civilization” as a “sign of weakness.”
