"It was dead people everywhere": Inside Australia's Hanukkah massacre

By Pete Mckenzie

SYDNEY, Dec 15 (Reuters) - ‌For a multimedia graphic, click here 

Among the thousands of people who flocked to Sydney's famed Bondi Beach on Sunday evening, some were seeking relief from the steamy weather while others joined a local Jewish group to celebrate the ‍beginning of Hanukkah, ‌or festival of light. Advertisements promised a petting farm, face painting and donuts and proclaimed the goal was to “fill Bondi with joy and light”.

Hours later the scene was a bloodbath.

For between 10 and 20 minutes, two gunmen opened fire ⁠on attendees at the Hanukkah event, gunning down men, women and children as terrified beachgoers fled. More than a dozen people ‌were killed and at least 40 wounded, some critically, including two police officers.  

Reuters has pieced together the moments when the Hanukkah turned from celebration to fear through interviews with more than a dozen witnesses, comments from police and officials, video footage of the shooting and media reports.

Police have not named the two suspects, one of whom was killed and the other critically wounded in a shoot-out with police. But state media ABC and other outlets have identified them as Sajid Akram and his son Naveed.

By Sunday, the men had gathered six firearms owned by the father and multiple improvised ⁠explosive devices, police said. The father was a registered firearms owner and belonged to a gun club, according to police. 

The two men were residing at a spartan Airbnb in the southwestern Sydney suburb of Campsie, according to the ABC, Australia's public broadcaster. But the son, a 24-year-old unemployed Sydney bricklayer, called his mother ​to tell her that he and his father, a 50-year-old shopowner, had gone for a weekend fishing trip on Australia’s eastern coast, the Sydney ‌Morning Herald reported, quoting his mother.

In October 2019, Australia's intelligence agency examined the son for ties to a self-proclaimed Islamic ⁠State terrorist,  Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a Monday press conference. Albanese said the agency decided there had been "no indication of any ongoing threat".

On Sunday evening, two men allegedly left improvised explosive devices in a silver car near Bondi’s beachfront, according to law enforcement, before heading towards the beach. 

Video footage subsequently shows two figures dressed in black atop a concrete bridge leading to a park and Bondi's crowded waters. Videos taken by bystanders showed both men shooting large, high-powered firearms ​from that highpoint towards the Hanukkah event.

Footage from a surf camera shows dozens of people sprinting across Bondi’s sand to escape the gunfire. A man who gave his name as Terry said his 15-year-old daughter was part of the stampede. 

She took refuge in the well-known Iceberg swimming pools at the southern end of Bondi, said Terry, where she used a stranger’s phone to call him at a separate Hanukkah event he was attending. 

“You stand here and you think you’re safe,” he said. But growing antisemitic violence, which many link to the war in Gaza, had made him reconsider his life in Australia. “Maybe we need to move to Israel one day,” he said. “The irony is that that’s looking like the only real safe place in the world ​we can be as Jews.” 

A ‍third video shows the older alleged shooter having moved off the bridge ​and standing by the festival site. There, the older shooter aims directly at an event attendee and fires while other people run. 

Phone footage shows a man identified by local media as Sydney resident Ahmed al Ahmed hiding behind a nearby car. As the older shooter continues firing, Ahmed breaks from behind the car and tackles him from behind, tearing the weapon from his hands and pointing it at him as he retreats. Ahmed was shot twice and was being treated at hospital on Monday.

Drone video subsequently shows the older shooter back on the concrete bridge, where he lies prone while the younger gunman moves back and forth before jolting and falling down. 

A sixth video shows three police officers race onto the bridge with weapons outstretched. Another shows them holding two men on the ground, while a bystander runs up to kick the men on the ground. 

More footage then shows at least nine law enforcement officers on the bridge, with several kneeling over the prone men, delivering chest compressions. Police said the older man died of his ⁠wounds at Bondi.

Hussain Rifi, 18, said he was in a shower block nearby with a group of friends. “We were flexing in the mirror, taking videos, and then we hear it: bang, bang, bang,” said Rifi. Soon, he realised the noises were gunshots. 

For roughly 20 minutes, he said he and his friends sheltered near the showers, until the shooting seemed to stop. When ​he peered around, he saw bodies on the ground. 

“There were chunks of something human on the floor,” said Rifi. “It was dead people everywhere.”

Hundreds of police and paramedics descended on the scene, from which dozens of victims and the surviving shooter were taken to local hospitals. The latest death toll is 16, including a 10-year-old girl and a British-born rabbi.

As darkness fell and wind scoured the beach, police began sweeping the grass and sand with flashlights, apparently searching for evidence. ABC reported that law enforcement found an Islamic State flag in the suspected gunmen's car nearby. 

On the other side of the city, law enforcement raided the men’s home in the Sydney suburb of Bonnyrigg and ‌their Airbnb in Campsie. 

On Bondi’s main road, Rabbi Levi Wolff of Central Sydney Synagogue watched in disbelief. He had raced over from a religious ceremony after hearing the news. 

“It’s hard to digest that this is real, that this is something that’s possible on the shores of Australia, somewhere that’s been so hospitable for generations,” he said, before stepping away to take a call from the office of Israel’s president. 

“The silent majority” who oppose antisemitism, he said, “has to no longer be silent.”

(Editing by Praveen Menon and Lincoln Feast)