SYDNEY (AP) — A child is one of at least 16 people killed in an attack in Australia at one of the world’s most famous beaches.
Hundreds of people had gathered at Bondi Beach in Sydney for an event to celebrate the first day of Hanukkah when gunmen opened fire.
At least 16 people are dead, and 38 others injured in a terrorist attack authorities say was designed to target the Jewish community.
New South Wales Health Minister Ryan Park said the death toll had risen from 12 to 16 overnight, including a 12-year-old child.
Three other children are being treated in hospital, he said.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called it an act of antisemitic terrorism that struck at the heart of the nation.
The massacre at one of Australia’s most popular beaches followed a wave of antisemitic attacks that have roiled the country over the past year, although the authorities didn’t suggest those and Sunday’s shooting were connected. It is the deadliest shooting in almost three decades in a country with strict gun control laws.
One gunman was fatally shot by police, and the second was arrested and in critical condition, authorities said. Police said one gunman was known to security services, but there was no specific threat.
At least 29 people were confirmed wounded, including two police officers, said Mal Lanyon, police commissioner for New South Wales state, where Sydney is located.
Police said officers were examining a number of suspicious items, including improvised explosive devices found in one of the suspect’s cars.
“This attack was designed to target Sydney’s Jewish community,” New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said.
The violence erupted at the end of a summer day when thousands had flocked to Bondi Beach, including hundreds gathered for the Chanukah by the Sea event celebrating the start of the eight-day Hanukkah festival.
Chabad, an Orthodox Jewish movement that runs outreach around the world and sponsors public events during major Jewish holidays, identified one of the dead as Rabbi Eli Schlanger, assistant rabbi at Chabad of Bondi and an organizer of the event.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry confirmed the death of an Israeli citizen, but gave no further details.
Police said emergency services were called to Campbell Parade in Bondi about 6:45 p.m., responding to reports of shots being fired. Video filmed by onlookers showed people in bathing suits running from the water as shots rang out. Separate footage showed two men in black shirts firing with long guns from a footbridge leading to the beach, as sirens wailed and people cried out in the background.
One dramatic clip broadcast on Australian television showed a man appearing to tackle and disarm one of the gunmen, before pointing the man’s weapon at him, then setting the gun on the ground.
Minns called the man, named by relatives to Australian media as fruit shop owner Ahmed al Ahmed, a “genuine hero.”
King Charles III said he and Queen Camilla were “appalled and saddened by the most dreadful antisemitic terrorist attack.” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said on X he was horrified, and his “heart is with the Jewish community worldwide.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a post on X: “The United States strongly condemns the terrorist attack in Australia targeting a Jewish celebration. Antisemitism has no place in this world.”
Police in cities around the world, including London, said they would step up security at Jewish sites.
Australia, a country of 28 million people, is home to about 117,000 Jews, according to official figures. Antisemitic incidents, including assaults, vandalism, threats and intimidation, surged more than threefold in the country during the year after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel launched a war on Hamas in Gaza in response, the government’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism Jillian Segal reported in July.
Last year, the country was rocked by antisemitic attacks in Sydney and Melbourne. Synagogues and cars were torched, businesses and homes graffitied and Jews attacked in those cities, where 85 per cent of the nation’s Jewish population lives.
Mass shootings in Australia are extremely rare. A 1996 massacre in the Tasmanian town of Port Arthur, where a lone gunman killed 35 people, prompted the government to drastically tighten gun laws, making it much more difficult to acquire firearms.
Significant mass shootings this century included two murder-suicides with death tolls of five people in 2014 and seven in 2018, in which gunmen killed their own families and themselves.
In 2022, six people were killed in a shootout between police and Christian extremists at a rural property in Queensland state.
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