Horror in Australia during the celebration of a Jewish holiday

The photo sequence shows an attacker wearing black shooting into the crowd while a passerby approaches him from behind and disarms him.

An attack on one of the world’s most famous beaches left 16 people dead, including a 12-year-old boy, according to Australian authorities, after two gunmen, a 50-year-old father and his 24-year-old son, opened fire at a Jewish celebration in Sydney yesterday. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called it an act of anti-Semitic terrorism.

Hundreds of people had gathered on Sydney’s Bondi Beach for an event to celebrate the first day of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah when the gunmen opened fire. At least 38 other people were injured in the attack. Three children are hospitalized.

“This is absolutely terrible for the community in general, but particularly for the Jewish community. What we saw was the worst of humanity, but at the same time it was also the best of humanity,” New South Wales Health Minister Ryan Park said.

The massacre at one of Australia’s most popular beaches followed a wave of anti-Semitic attacks that rocked the country last year, although authorities did not suspect a connection between those incidents and yesterday’s shooting. It is the deadliest shooting in nearly three decades in a country with strict gun control laws.

The 50-year-old gunman was killed by police and his arrested son is in critical condition. Police said one of the gunmen, the man killed, was known to security services but there was no specific threat.

At least 29 people were injured, including two police officers, said Mal Lanyon, police commissioner for New South Wales state, where Sydney is located.

Anti-Semitic attack

Police noted that their operation was “ongoing” and that “several suspicious items” were being examined by specialist officers, including several improvised explosive devices found in the car of one of the suspects.

“This attack was planned to target Sydney’s Jewish community,” said the state’s premier, Chris Minns.

The violence erupted at the end of a hot summer day as thousands of people flocked to Bondi Beach, including hundreds who had gathered for an event called “Hanukkah by the Sea,” celebrating the start of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah.

Chabad, an Orthodox Jewish movement known for its outreach to non-religious Jews, identified one of the deceased as Rabbi Eli Snaker, deputy rabbi of Chabad of Bondi and one of the event’s main organizers.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry confirmed the death of an Israeli citizen but gave no further details.

Police said emergency crews were called to Campbell Parade at about 6:45 p.m. to reports of shots fired.

Video footage filmed by bystanders showed people in swimsuits running from the water as shots rang out. In separate images, two men wearing black T-shirts were seen firing guns from a walkway leading to the beach as sirens blared and people screamed in the background.

A dramatic clip, apparently filmed by a member of the public and broadcast on Australian television channels, showed a bystander – identified as Ahmed al Ahmed, the owner of a greengrocer – attacking and disarming one of the attackers before pointing the gun he had taken from him at him and then placing it on the ground.

Minns called the man a “true hero.”

What is Hanukkah?

It should be said that Hanukkah is a Jewish holiday of eight days and nights, known as the “Festival of Light,” which celebrates the victory of the Maccabean Jews over the Greek oppressors and the cleansing of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. This commemorates a miracle in which the oil for the menorah (nine-branched candelabra) lasted eight days instead of one.

According to official figures, around 117,000 Jews live in Australia, a country with 28 million inhabitants. Anti-Semitic incidents, including attacks, vandalism, threats and intimidation, tripled in the country in the year following Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, Jillian Segal, the government’s special envoy to combat anti-Semitism, reported in July.

Last year the country was rocked by a series of anti-Semitic attacks in Sydney and Melbourne. In the cities where 85% of the country’s Jewish population lives, synagogues and cars were burned, shops and homes were graffitied, and Jews were attacked.

Mass shooting deaths in Australia are extremely rare. A 1996 massacre in the Tasmanian town of Port Arthur, in which a lone gunman killed 35 people, prompted the government to dramatically tighten gun laws and made it much more difficult for Australians to purchase firearms.