{"id":30146,"date":"2025-12-15T16:09:20","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T21:09:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=30146"},"modified":"2025-12-15T16:09:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T21:09:20","slug":"bondi-beach-massacre-death-toll-rises-to-15-40-wounded-after-gunmen-opened-fire-on-hanukkah-celebration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/12\/bondi-beach-massacre-death-toll-rises-to-15-40-wounded-after-gunmen-opened-fire-on-hanukkah-celebration","title":{"rendered":"Bondi Beach Massacre: Death Toll Rises to 15, 40 Wounded After Gunmen Opened Fire on Hanukkah Celebration"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Australian authorities have identified one of the gunmen who opened fire at a Hanukkah celebration on Sydney\u2019s Bondi Beach as 24-year-old Naveed Akram, as new details emerge about the targeted attack that authorities are treating as terrorism.<\/p>\n

Sixteen people were killed, including one of the gunmen, and 40 others were wounded in the shooting, which targeted the Jewish community, police said. The death toll rose after one of the alleged attackers was killed by police. A second suspect remains hospitalized in critical condition, and investigators are continuing searches amid reports of a possible third attacker, The Telegraph\u00a0<\/a>reports.<\/p>\n

Video footage shared by Sky News shows two men dressed in black firing rifles toward the beach from a pedestrian bridge above a nearby parking area at about 6:40 p.m. Sunday.<\/p>\n

In the footage, one of the gunmen is tackled by a bystander before retreating to retrieve another weapon and resuming fire.<\/p>\n

The bystander, later identified by\u00a07 News Australia<\/a>\u00a0as 43-year-old Ahmed Al-Ahmed, is a local shop owner and father-of-two who decided to step in and grab the rifle from one of the gunmen.<\/p>\n

Police later confirmed they recovered an improvised explosive device from a vehicle linked to the deceased suspect. Authorities also said they had previously been \u201caware\u201d of one of the offenders, though they did not provide further details.<\/p>\n

The attackers targeted an event marking the start of Hanukkah that drew families to the popular beach.<\/p>\n

Rabbi Leibel Lazaroff, who was helping run the event, was wounded in the shooting, according to his father, Yossi Lazaroff, the campus rabbi at Texas A&M University. In a social media post, he asked people to pray for his son.<\/p>\n

“Please say\u00a0Psalms 20<\/a>\u00a0&\u00a021\u00a0for my son, Rabbi Leibel Lazaroff, who was shot in a terrorist attack at a Chanukah event he was running for Chabad of Bondi in Sydney, Australia. The Chabad Rabbi he was working with Rabbi Eli Schlanger was killed. Praying for all the victims and their families,” he\u00a0shared on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A Holocaust survivor was also among the dead. Larisa Kleytman said her husband, Alex, was shot in the back of the head while trying to shield her during the attack. The couple had immigrated to Australia from Ukraine and were attending the celebration together.<\/p>\n

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called it \u201can act of evil antisemitism\u201d and said it had \u201cstruck the heart of our nation,” in an\u00a0official statement<\/a>\u00a0shared on X.<\/p>\n

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio\u00a0condemned the violence<\/a>, saying in part, “Antisemitism has no place in this world. Our prayers are with the victims of this horrific attack, the Jewish community, and the people of Australia.”<\/p>\n

At a press conference Sunday evening, Chris Minns, the premier of New South Wales, said the wounded range in age between 10 to 87. He added that the government will be looking at passing new gun law reforms after this incident.<\/p>\n

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described the Bondi Beach massacre as “an attack deliberately targeted at the Jewish community.”<\/p>\n

NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon did not identify the two suspects by name but said they are a father and son, ages 50 and 24. The 50-year-old is deceased, and the 24-year-old is in critical condition at a local hospital. The father had a gun license for 10 years.<\/p>\n

He confirmed the investigation has found that only two suspects were involved in the attack, and not three as some had initially speculated.<\/p>\n

Lanyon added that two police officers were also wounded and are in critical but stable condition.<\/p>\n

He added that two improvised explosive devices were also found at the scene, and he was relieved that neither was detonated.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on The Christian Post<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australian authorities have identified one of the gunmen who opened fire at a Hanukkah celebration on Sydney\u2019s Bondi Beach as 24-year-old Naveed Akram, as new details emerge about the targeted attack that authorities are treating as terrorism. Sixteen people were killed, including one of the gunmen, and 40 others were wounded in the shooting, which…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":630,"featured_media":30152,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nBondi Beach Massacre: Death Toll Rises to 15, 40 Wounded After Gunmen Opened Fire on Hanukkah Celebration<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"At least 15 people were killed and dozens more were injured after two gunmen opened fire at a crowd celebrating the first day of Hanukkah.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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