Australia celebrated this Wednesday the first funeral of the victims of the shooting on the famous Bondi Beach in Sydney, with a large crowd gathered to say goodbye to those who died after the attack
Among the victims were a 10-year-old girl, two Holocaust survivors and a married couple who died while trying to thwart the attack.
Eli Schlanger, a father of five known as the “Rabbi of Bondi,” was the first deceased person to be honored with a service at the Chabad synagogue.
Schlanger served in prisons and hospitals, according to the Chabad movement, which represents a branch of Hasidic Jews and organized Sunday’s event.
Family and friends They wept as his body was carried to the synagogue in a black coffin. “Everyone who knew him knew he was the best of us,” Jewish community leader Alex Ryvchin said before the funeral.
Chabad Synagogue in Bondi will hold a second funeral service for Rabbi Yaakov Levitan, 39, in the afternoon. Levitan was a father of four children and was known for his charitable work, according to the Chabad movement.
Several police patrols patrolled the streets around the Bondi Synagogue, in front of the crowd gathered to pay tribute to him. “My heart goes out to the community today and every day,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Wednesday. “But today will be a particularly difficult day, with the first burials underway,” he told a local radio station.
sow panic
Australian authorities said the attack was intended to sow panic among the country’s Jewish community.
Albanese said the attackers, father and son, They had been radicalized by an “ideology of hatred”. “It appears that this was motivated by the ideology” of the Islamic State jihadist group, he told national channel ABC on Tuesday.
Questions are growing about whether authorities could have acted sooner to thwart the attack. Naveed Akram, believed to be an unemployed bricklayer, came to the attention of Australian intelligence services in 2019. However, he was not considered an imminent threat.
The police investigation into whether the two men met with Islamist extremists during a visit to the Philippines a few weeks before the attack.
Philippine immigration authorities confirmed to AFP that they had spent almost the entire month of November in this Asian country, with Davao as their final destination.
This region, located on the southern island of Mindanao, has a long history of Islamist insurgencies. Armed with long-barreled rifles, father and son fired for 10 minutes on Bondi Beach before police shot dead 50-year-old Sajid Akram.
Naveed Akram, 24, was also injured and remains hospitalized under police guard. According to media reports, he came out of the coma on Tuesday.
Australian heroes
THE Security camera footage revealed They show a married couple, Boris and Sofía Gurman, trying to thwart the attack in its early stages.
Boris Gurman, 69-year-old retired mechanic, He knocks down one of the attackers as he tries to grab his rifle. He managed to grab the gun from Sajid Akram while his wife, Sofia Gurman, 61, ran to help him.
According to reports, the attacker pulled out another gun and killed the couple. “Even though nothing can ease the pain of losing Boris and Sofia, we feel immense pride for their courage and selflessness,” the family said in a statement.
Australian leaders have agreed to toughen laws allowing their father, Sajid Akram, to own six guns.
Mass shootings have been rare in Australia since a lone gunman killed 35 people in the seaside resort of Port Arthur in 1996. The attack sparked a world-first crackdown that included a gun buyback program.
However, Australia has seen a steady increase in private gun ownership in recent years.
The attack also reignited accusations that the country was dragging its feet in the fight against anti-Semitism. “I demand that Western governments do what is necessary to combat anti-Semitism and provide the necessary security for Jewish communities around the world,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded in a video on Tuesday.
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