At least 15 people were killed Sunday and dozens more were injured after two gunmen opened fire at a crowd celebrating the first day of the Hanukkah holiday on Bondi Beach in Sydney. The gunmen were father and son, police said, and the older man died during the attack.<\/b>
\nAt least 15 people were killed Sunday and dozens more were injured after two gunmen opened fire at a crowd celebrating the first day of the Hanukkah holiday on Bondi Beach in Sydney. The gunmen were father and son, police said, and the older man died during the attack.
On Monday morning in Australia, officials said 40 people were hospitalized from injuries. Two police officers were also hurt in the attack, officials said. Police said the second shooter had also been wounded.
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Police and the country\u2019s leaders called the shootings a targeted attack on Jewish Australians. Law enforcement officials called the shooting a terrorist attack.
Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said police had found and disabled two improvised explosives devices in a nearby vehicle linked to the suspect who was killed. The suspects\u2019 names have not been released.
One witness video shows dozens of people running out of the water and away from the beach as gunshots rang out. Another, verified by The New York Times, shows a bystander \u2014 who local authorities called a hero \u2014 tackling and disarming one of the gunmen.
Jewish people have increasingly been targeted since the Hamas-led attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. In Britain, a man attacked a synagogue in Manchester on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year for Jews. And American Jews have faced a year of violence.
Here is what we know so far about the Australia shooting:
The mass shooting happened around 6:45 p.m. Sunday at Bondi Beach, one of Sydney\u2019s most popular tourist destinations that stretches over 3,000 feet long and draws hundreds of thousands of people each year.
An event hosted by the Chabad organization was taking place at the beach to celebrate the first day of the Jewish holiday Hanukkah when the gunmen opened fire.
\u201cAn attack on Jewish Australians is an attack on every Australian,\u201d Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia said in a televised address.
Local Rabbi Eric Soloman told WRAL news he
feels shocked, devastation, and a profound sense of loss, but he also said he\u2019s
keeping the message of Hanukkah in his heart.
\u00ab\u00a0It’s the one holiday in the Jewish
calendar where it’s required to put that light, the miracle in the window, to
spread that light, not only to the Jewish people, but really to the world, to
say that God’s light is for everyone, and that goodness will overcome evil and
light will overcome darkness.\u00a0\u00bb
Officials declared the shooting a
terrorist event and said the attack targeted Jewish people who were at an
event to mark the first day of Hanukkah.
Soloman\u2019s sentiments were echoed in a
statement by the Jewish Federation Greater Raleigh released on Sunday urging
people to \u201cremember the holiday\u2019s message of courage and perseverance.\u201d
\u201cWe will not allow acts of terror to
diminish our joy or dictate how we celebrate our faith and traditions,\u201d the statement
read in part. \u201cNow, more than ever, we stand together as a community\u2014proud,
resilient, and united in our commitment to live openly and celebrate our
heritage.\u201d
Officials said safety of the community
remains the highest priority and urges members to remain vigilant and aware of
their surroundings.
Ebonny Munro was at the beach with her 17-month-old baby when she heard gunshots. She dived under a metal barbecue with another man. She said she heard bullets ricocheting off the barbecue and smelled gunpowder from above.
She said the shooting lasted about 10 minutes, and she witnessed at least one person being shot. \u201cI was about to leave, and I just heard this pop,\u201d Munro said.
Finn Foster, 18, a backpacker from Canada, said he and his girlfriend had been headed to McDonald\u2019s to get ice cream when they heard what sounded like fireworks.
\u201cPow, pow, pow,\u201d he said. \u201cLike 15 or 20.\u201d
Mass shootings are rare in Australia because of the country\u2019s strict gun laws. The nation has one of the lowest gun-related death rates in the developed world.
The country overhauled its gun laws after a massacre in 1996, when 35 people were killed by a single gunman in the Tasmanian town of Port Arthur. Following the shooting, public anger prompted the government to ban assault rifles and many other semiautomatic rifles and shotguns.
It also imposed new registration requirements and imposed gun buybacks that removed up to one-third of privately held guns from circulation and melted down up to 1 million guns.
As authorities worked to notify the next of kin of those killed and injured \u2014 who ranged in age from 10 to 87, according to authorities \u2014 some of their identities began to emerge.
Chabad, the Jewish movement that organized the event at Bondi, identified one of the victims as Rabbi Eli Schlanger, saying he was an assistant rabbi of Chabad of Bondi and a \u201cdevoted\u201d chaplain who worked tirelessly as a Chabad emissary. Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City, said on social media that Schlanger had deep roots in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn.
Chabad also identified two more people who were killed in the attack: Reuven Morrison, a member of the Chabad community who divided his time between Melbourne and Sydney; and Alex Kleytman, a Holocaust survivor who attended the event with his children and grandchildren.
Dan Elkayam, a French citizen, was among those killed in the attack, President Emmanuel Macron of France said on social media.
Investigators described the suspects as a 50-year-old man and his 24-year-old son. The older man died after being shot by police and the younger man sustained \u201ccritical injuries,\u201d police said Monday morning.
Although officials described the shooting as a terrorist attack, Lanyon of the New South Wales Police Force declined to comment on the suspects\u2019 ideology, saying that investigators needed time to dig. Police were not searching for any other assailants, he said.
Although Lanyon said that one of the suspects had been known to police, he said investigators had no indication that either man had been planning the shooting.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n