It was meant to be a joyful start to Hanukkah. Hundreds had gathered on Sydney’s Bondi Beach to celebrate the first day of the eight-day Jewish festival, enjoying face painting, donuts, and a petting farm. Signs around the event promised to “fill Bondi with joy and light.”
But on Sunday evening, what should have been a festive gathering became a scene of horror. In a span of 10 to 20 minutes, two gunmen opened fire on the crowd, shooting indiscriminately at men, women, and children.
Fifteen people died, including a 10-year-old girl, a rabbi, and a Holocaust survivor. At least 40 others were injured, some critically, including two police officers. Video footage captured terrified beachgoers sprinting across the sand and diving for cover.
Some sought refuge in the nearby Iceberg swimming pools, calling family members from strangers’ phones amid the chaos.
Authorities later identified the attackers as Sajid Akram, 50, and his 24-year-old son Naveed. Police said the father, a shop owner, was a licensed firearms holder and a member of a gun club, suggesting experience with target shooting. The son, an unemployed bricklayer born in Australia, was critically wounded and is under hospital care.
The father died in a shootout with police.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described the attack as “antisemitic terrorism.”
He revealed that the son had been under investigation by the Australian Security Intelligence Agency for six months in 2019 over suspected links to a Sydney-based Islamic State cell. “There was no indication of any ongoing threat at the time,” Albanese said.
Police said the two men had six firearms and several improvised explosive devices. The attackers reportedly left explosives in a car near Bondi before moving toward the beach. The father and son were staying at an Airbnb in Campsie, southwestern Sydney.
The attack shocked a nation known for strict gun laws and low rates of gun violence. Mass shootings are extremely rare in Australia, the deadliest in recent memory occurring in 1996 at Port Arthur, Tasmania, where a lone gunman killed 35 people.
Since then, significant shootings have mostly been isolated incidents involving family members.
Amid the terror, acts of bravery emerged. Ahmed al Ahmed, a 42-year-old fruit shop owner, confronted one of the gunmen. He was shot in the shoulder but survived after disarming the attacker. Such acts offered fleeting glimpses of courage in a night otherwise dominated by tragedy.
The massacre forms part of a broader wave of anti-Semitic attacks across Australia since Israel’s war in Gaza began in October 2023.
In May 2024, Australia’s largest Jewish school in Melbourne was graffitied. By October, attacks escalated in Sydney, where a Jewish bakery was defaced, and two Bondi businesses, Curly Lewis Brewing Company and Lewis’ Continental Kitchen, were set alight.
Investigators later charged a former biker gang member with directing these fires, allegedly to divert police resources. Albanese has blamed some of these attacks on Iranian government involvement.
The violence continued through late 2024 and early 2025. Cars were set alight and buildings vandalised in Sydney’s east, home to a large Jewish population.
In December, the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne was torched, and Victoria’s state counter-terrorism taskforce charged two men in August 2025.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu linked some incidents to Australia’s stance at the United Nations on Palestine. On 9 December, the federal government launched a Task Force on Anti-Semitism.
In January 2025, attacks escalated further. Synagogues in Sydney were graffitied and targeted for arson, cars and homes were vandalised, and worshippers were threatened.
NSW Premier Chris Minns condemned the incidents as an escalation in anti-Semitic crime.
Authorities made several arrests, including a Sydney man charged with death threats and vandalism, and a woman linked to an arson attack on a childcare centre.
On 29 January, police found a trailer filled with explosives, later determined to be a fake plot by an organised crime network to divert police attention from a synagogue. On 12 February, two nurses were suspended for threatening Jewish patients in a video posted on TikTok.
In response to the Bondi Beach attack and the rise in anti-Semitic incidents, Prime Minister Albanese convened a meeting of state and territory leaders to coordinate a national response.
The gathering focused on strengthening Australia’s gun control laws and tackling hate-driven violence. Albanese confirmed that National Cabinet agreed on a series of measures, including establishing a National Firearms Register, expanding the use of criminal intelligence in licensing, limiting the number and types of firearms an individual may hold, and requiring Australian citizenship to obtain a firearm licence.
Customs restrictions on firearm imports, including 3D-printed guns and high-capacity weaponry, will also be examined. Albanese reiterated that the cabinet had “pledged to eradicate antisemitism, hate, violence and terrorism.”
The Bondi Beach massacre, combined with the ongoing wave of anti-Semitic attacks, has left Australians shaken. For the Jewish community and the nation at large, the tragedy is a stark reminder that even in countries with strict gun regulations, the threat of violence can intrude on moments of celebration.
Authorities continue to investigate the events, piecing together how the attack unfolded and considering what preventive measures might have averted the horror.
