Ten people were killed and a dozen injured when gunmen opened fire on Sunday at a Jewish party on Sydney’s Bondi Beach, Australian authorities said.
New South Wales police said two people had been arrested and Australian broadcaster ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corp) said at least one of the two gunmen was among the dead. About a dozen people were taken to local hospitals after the shooting, a spokesperson for the local ambulance service said.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described the incident as “shocking and distressing”, adding that “emergency teams are on scene trying to save lives”. “I saw at least 10 people on the ground and blood everywhere,” Harry Wilson, 30, a local resident who witnessed the shooting, told the Sydney Morning Herald.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said Jews who were going to light the first Hanukkah candle on the beach were attacked by “vile terrorists.” Australia has suffered a series of anti-Semitic attacks on synagogues, buildings and cars since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said he was dismayed by the shooting. “These are the results of the anti-Semitic wave that has swept through the streets of Australia over the past two years, with anti-Semitic calls and incitements to “globalize the Intifada” coming to fruition today. »
Bondi, one of the most famous beaches in the world, is often packed with locals and tourists, especially on warm weekend nights. “If we were deliberately targeted in this way, it’s on a scale that none of us could have ever imagined. It’s a horrible thing,” Alex Ryvchin, co-executive director of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, told Sky News, adding that his press secretary was injured in the attack.
Videos circulating online show people on the beach and in a nearby park dispersing to the sound of multiple gunshots and police sirens. A video shows a man in a black shirt firing a large weapon before being restrained by a man in a white t-shirt, who takes the weapon from him. Another man was seen firing a gun from a walkway.
Another video shows two men tackled to the ground by uniformed police officers on a small footbridge. The police try to resuscitate one of the men. Reuters was not immediately able to verify the footage.
The attack came almost 11 years after a lone gunman took 18 people hostage at Sydney’s Lindt Café. Two hostages and the shooter were killed after 16 hours of clashes.
Sussan Ley, leader of Australia’s opposition Liberal Party, said the loss of life in the incident was “significant.” “Australians are in deep mourning tonight as hateful violence strikes at the heart of an iconic Australian community, a place we all know and love so well, Bondi,” she said.
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