Australia vowed stricter gun laws on Monday as it began mourning victims of its worst mass shooting in almost 30 years, in which police accused a father and son of killing 15 people at a Jewish celebration at Sydney’s famed Bondi Beach.
The older gunman, aged 50, was killed at the scene, taking the tally of dead to 16, while his 24-year-old son was in a critical condition in hospital, police told a press conference.
Police have not released the suspects’ names but national broadcaster ABC and other media have identified them as Sajid Akram and his son Naveed Akram. Two flags of militant group Islamic State were found in the gunmen’s vehicle, ABC News reported, without citing a source.
The incident has raised questions about whether Australia’s gun laws, among the toughest in the world, need an overhaul, with police saying the older suspect had held a firearms licence since 2015, along with six registered weapons.
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For between 10 and 20 minutes on Sunday evening, the gunmen had fired on attendees at the Hanukkah event, gunning down men, women and children as terrified beachgoers fled.
The victims were aged between 10 and 87. Among them were a rabbi who was a father of five, a Holocaust survivor, a Slovak woman and a 10-year-old girl, according to interviews, officials and local media reports. The 40 people taken to hospital after the attack included two police officers who were in a serious but stable condition, police said.
“What we saw yesterday was an act of pure evil, an act of anti-Semitism, an act of terrorism,” prime minister Anthony Albanese told reporters after laying flowers at Bondi Beach.
“The Jewish community are hurting today,” he added. “Today, all Australians wrap our arms around them and say, we stand with you. We will do whatever is necessary to stamp out anti-Semitism. It is a scourge, and we will eradicate it together.”
[ Who are the Bondi Beach shooting suspects, Naveed and Sajid Akram?Opens in new window ]
Mourners paid respects and laid flowers at a makeshift memorial at the Bondi pavilion draped in Israeli and Australian flags as police and private Jewish security guards patrolled. Mr Albanese said his cabinet had agreed to strengthen gun laws and work on a national firearms register to tackle aspects such as the number of weapons permitted by gun licences, and how long the latter are valid.
“People’s circumstances can change,” he told reporters before the cabinet met. “People can be radicalised over a period of time. Licences should not be in perpetuity.” Security officials said one of the gunmen was known to authorities but had not been deemed an immediate threat.
“We are very much working through the background of both people. At this stage, we know very little about them,” New South Wales police commissioner Mal Lanyon told reporters.
Home minister Tony Burke said the father arrived in Australia in 1998 on a student visa, while his son is an Australian-born citizen.
Police gave no details of their firearms, but videos from the scene showed the men firing weapons that appeared to be a bolt-action rifle and a shotgun.
Mr Albanese said measures being considered ranged from curbs on open-ended licences to limits on weapons held by a single individual and the types that are legal, including modifications, with permits restricted to Australian citizens.
Witnesses said the attack at the beach, crowded on a hot weekend evening, sent about 1,000 people attending a Hanukkah event fleeing along the sand and into nearby streets. A bystander, Ahmed al Ahmed, captured on video tackling and disarming an armed man during the attack, has been hailed as a hero whose action saved lives. He had surgery after being shot twice. A fundraising page drew more than $1 million for him.
Bondi resident Morgan Gabriel (27) said she had been heading to a nearby cinema when she heard what she thought were fireworks, before people started running up her street.
“Their phones had been left down the beach, and everyone was just trying to get away,” she said.
“It’s a very sad time this morning,” she said, with the beach bare of the usual throng of swimmers, surfers and runners.
“So this is very, very quiet. And there’s definitely a solemn sort of vibe.”
[ ‘It was dead people everywhere’: Inside Australia’s Hanukkah massacreOpens in new window ]
World leaders including US president Donald Trump have offered condolences and support, Mr Albanese said. Sunday’s shootings were the most serious in a string of anti-Semitic attacks on synagogues, buildings and cars in Australia since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza in October 2023.
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said he had warned Mr Albanese that Australia’s support for Palestinian statehood would fuel anti-Semitism. In August, Australia accused Iran of directing at least two anti-Semitic attacks and gave its ambassador a week to leave the country.
Mass shootings are rare in Australia, one of the world’s safest countries. Sunday’s attack was the worst since 1996, when a gunman killed 35 people at the Port Arthur tourist site in the southern island state of Tasmania.
“You can very easily become very angry and try to blame people, turn on people, but that’s not what this is about,” said Rabbi Mendel Kastel, whose brother-in-law Eli Schlanger was killed on Sunday.
“We need to step up at a time like this ... And we will, and we will get through this, and we know that. The Australian community will help us do it.”
Jews number about 150,000 of Australia’s population of 27 million, with about a third estimated to live in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, including Bondi. – Reuters
