"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.""An act of evil antisemitism, terrorism, that has struck the heart of our nation. An attack on Jewish Australians is an attack on every Australian. And every Australian tonight will be -- like me -- devastated on this attack on our way of life.""There is no place for this hate, violence and terrorism in our nation. Let me be clear. We will eradicate it.""We stand with you. We embrace you. And we reaffirm tonight that you have every right to be proud of who you are and what you believe.""You have the right to worship and study and live and work in peace and safety. And you enrich us as a nation."Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese
| Police tape off a road after the shooting in Bondi. (ABC News: Victoria Pengilley) |
Another
demographic in Australia also has the right to what they believe. They
have the right to worship and live and work in Australia all the while
actively pursuing a dedication to their faith demanding jihad, and to do
so in a manner that threatens that of Australia's Jews to deny them
peace and safety. Their presence is anything but enriching to the
nation. Yet their numbers influence the Australian government to permit
their constant denial of security to the Jews that call Australia their
home. The Albanese government's refusal to curtail their criminal
harassment and threatening of Jews in Australia has effectively given
Palestinians and other Muslims the green light to continue their
campaign of hate.
On
Sunday just past, when an estimated thousand Australian Jews gathered
in a celebration of the Festival of Lights commemorating Hanukkah -- the
Biblical-era event of the 2nd Century Maccabean rebellion against the
Seleucid Empire, the Jerusalem Temple had been desecrated and Judah
Maccabee set about to rededicate the Temple, but could find for his
ceremony only enough sacred oil to last a day. Miraculously, the oil
burned for a week, renewing the Jewish faith and the Temple, a symbol of
Jewish fortitude and resilience that is celebrated every year by the
current generations of Jews globally -- a tragedy marred the
proceedings.
A
father and son, armed by their Islamofascist infamy dedicated to the
destruction of Jews and of the Jewish state, along with deadly arms
stationed themselves on a bridge overlooking the beach to randomly open
fire on the crowds below resulting in a frantic panic of people trying
to escape the carnage that began taking place around them, as children
and adults alike succumbed to the lethal barrage of bullets. Before the
carnage ensued, an older Jewish couple involved themselves when Boris
Gurman, 69, grappled with one of the gunmen in an attempt to disarm him,
an attempt that failed when he and his wife, 61-year-old Sofia were
shot and killed, the first of the victims.
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| Screenshot from a dashcam clip shows a man falling down after attempting to disarm one of the gunmen behind the Bondi Beach mass shooting. Reuters |
Astonishingly,
in that huge crowd of people celebrating the Jewish holiday, there were
but two Australian police on duty and they were likely unarmed. Between
them the two killers had three long guns. At 6:47 p.m., from a distance
of 50 metres, they began their assault. Parents threw themselves over
their children as human shields; one elderly man attempting to shield
his wife was shot in the head and killed. Some people ran into the sea,
while others frantically exited the water. "It just didn't stop. We were so targeted in that little space. We were like sitting ducks", one woman said as the gunmen reloaded and fired, again and again.
When
police finally arrived from a nearby station, they were armed with
pistols as opposed to the long guns of the attackers. When the older
shooter left the footbridge to the grass for a closer approach to the
victims, he fired at point-blank range into the crowd. Before long he
was tackled from behind by 43-year-old father of two, Maronite Christian
bystander Ahmed al Ahmed tackling from between parked cars who
succeeded in wresting the gun away, briefly turning the weapon on the
shooter who returned to the bridge for the third weapon to resume
shooting. The terrorists responsible for the massacre were father and
son, Sajid and Naveed Sajid Akram, Australian citizens of Pakistani
descent.
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| Still from video of Ahmed Al Ahmed tackling one of the gunmen |
"Rescuers
frantically pumped the chests of unmoving bodies on the grass, near a
picnic table, an abandoned stroller and the petting zoo",
it was reported, after the older of the two men had been shot dead and
his son, wounded, taken to hospital in custody. There was another heroic
act, one of so many, in this tragic story of inhuman depravity and
human courage. That of 14-year old Chaya who had acted impulsively on
seeing two younger children on their own while bullets rained down among
them, to shield them with her own body. She was shot in the leg and
when the shooters were incapacitated, she was rushed to a nearby
hospital for treatment.
 |
"[The weapons appear to be] the kinds of things people can buy legally in Australia. My first impression is, you're looking at an over/under shotgun, which is a double barrel shotgun, with the barrels configured vertically instead of horizontally. If that is correct, a double barrel shotgun holds two rounds, and you have to reload it every time you fire two rounds.""As far as them being able to get off as many shots as they did, even if you're using a double-action rifle or a breakaction shotgun, you would still be able to get off a lot of shots. Because there is nobody shooting back at you".Canadian firearms writer Andrew Somerset
Australia,
which has some of the strictest gun-owning laws in the world, is now
considering tightening them even more. As though it was the guns that
were responsible for two men shouting 'Allahu Akbar! and warning
non-Jews to move away before firing indiscriminately and even aiming
directly at a 10-year-old child they murdered, described by her
horrified mother as a deliberate aim at her daughter. The government
carefully refraining from describing the attack as one committed by
Muslims against Jews, although it has been identified as a terrorist
atrocity and the two attackers held an association with Islamic State.
"Nothing in the video suggests to me these people had any kind of para-military training. There is more than one path to prevent these incidents and simply saying 'we're not going to let people have guns' is not going to sole the problem.""You have to try to control these things by saying people can't be antisemitic. You can start to go after the networks of people who publicly express support for groups like Hamas."Andrew Somerset, Canadian firearms writer
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| A woman leaves the scene with her child, who is covered in an emergency blanket, after a shooting at Bondi Beach on December 14, 2025 in Sydney, Australia. (credit: George Chan/Getty Images) |