Australia’s deadliest mass shooting in almost 30 years targeted Jewish families on Sydney’s Bondi Beach, one of the country’s most iconic locations, on one of the most festive days of the Jewish calendar.
Crowds of people had gathered near the beach to celebrate Hannukah, the festival of lights, at an event widely publicized as a Jewish community family festival that promised free donuts and face painting and to fill Bondi with “joy and light.”
But an hour before sunset, two gunmen – the suspects revealed as a father and son – opened fire from a bridge near Archer Park, a grassy area near the famous beach, as tourists and residents wandered along Campbell Parade, enjoying the final minutes of what had otherwise been a glorious Sunday.
Witnesses said they heard what sounded like fireworks, before the horrifying realization that it was gunfire – a largely unfamiliar sound in Australia where strict firearm laws mean shootings are rare. The last time this many people were killed was in 1996 at the Port Arthur massacre, when one man armed with multiple weapons opened fire at a tourist site in Tasmania.
This attack was far closer to home. It happened in Sydney, one of the main hubs of Jewish life in Australia, home to a community of around 120,000 people in a population of 27 million.
The indiscriminate massacre took the lives of multiple generations, from a 10-year-old girl to a Holocaust survivor.
Belongings of members of the Jewish community are seen at the scene of a shooting at Bondi Beach in Sydney on December 15, 2025. – David Gray/AFP/Getty Images
Bondi’s famous white sand beach is promoted as a place visitors can soak up the sun and escape from the world beyond with friends. In the aftermath of the attack, strollers were left behind on the lawn, discarded as parents grabbed their children and ran, throwing off their flip flops, to flee the bullets and find shelter.
Standing before the nation late Sunday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the attack “an act of evil.”
“There is no place for this hate, violence and terrorism in our nation. Let me be clear, we will eradicate it,” he said.
Rise in antisemitism
Australia’s Jewish leaders have been urging the Australian government for years to do more to address rising antisemitism in the country.
Australia has seen huge public protests over the magnitude of Israel’s war in Gaza and after a surge in reports of attacks against Jewish sites and property, Albanese appointed a Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism last year – handing the role to Jillian Segal.
Security patrols were ramped up around Jewish sites in Sydney, but the Executive Council of Australia Jewry (ECAJ), which represents 200 Jewish organizations, said Sunday’s attack proved more needed to be done to ensure the safety of Jewish people.
“The writing was on the wall,” said Alex Ryvchin, ECAJ co-CEO, referring to statistics that show 1,654 reported antisemitic attacks reported in Australia last year.
“This sort of thing was always bound to happen. But at the same time, we’re not a country with a high level of gun crime… This sort of thing just doesn’t happen here,” he added.
Albanese was directly asked on Sunday if he’d taken antisemitism seriously enough. “Yes, we have taken it seriously, and we’ve continued to act,” he said.
On Monday, he listed the actions taken based on a report filed by Segal in July. They included millions of dollars spent on social cohesion projects and upgrades to Jewish museums and education centers. Reviews are also underway into university programs to promote inclusivity for Jewish students and staff, he said.
Some of Segal’s recommendations had earlier been criticized as too sweeping, and an infringement on the right to free speech.
The Albanese government has tried to walk a fine line to ensure tensions overseas aren’t imported into Australia. Along with antisemitism envoy, he appointed an anti-Islamophobia envoy, to address retaliation against the Palestinian community and their supporters.
In August, the government took the extraordinary step of expelling the Iranian ambassador to Australia after the country’s security agency linked Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to two arson attacks on Jewish properties in 2024. It was the first time Australia had expelled a foreign ambassador since World War Two.
“They have sought to harm and terrify Jewish Australians and to sow hatred and division in our community,” Albanese said at the time. Though, at the same press briefing, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Director-General Mike Burgess said Iran couldn’t be held responsible for every antisemitic attack on Australian soil.
Fears of rising tensions
The massacre at Bondi Beach marks an unimaginable escalation in violence for a country with one of the world’s lowest gun homicide rates, where mass shootings are something that happen elsewhere.
Strict gun laws mean it’s difficult to legally access firearms, but those rules look now set to be tightened further following a National Cabinet meeting Monday.
State and territory leaders agreed to work on new rules restricting gun licenses to Australian citizens, with limits on how many guns they can own, and how long their license remains valid. New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said Monday that state laws would change too.
The older of the two suspects, a 50-year-old man, was a member of a gun club and had a recreational hunting license that entitled him to own the long arms used in the attack, NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said.
“The father has held a firearms license since 2015. We are very much working through the background of both persons. At this stage, we know very little about them,” Lanyon said.
The man was killed by police at the scene, while his 24-year-old son remains in hospital and is likely to face charges, police said. Hundreds of police were deployed across the city to gather evidence as Australians questioned how such a devastating attack could have been planned and executed in a public space without prior detection.
Investigators raided a home in the western Sydney suburb of Bonnyrigg late Sunday that is believed to be connected to the Bondi attack. A team of half a dozen forensic experts were seen arriving in full protective gear on Monday, as police tape ringed the property.
Locals told CNN of their shock that suspects could have been living nearby.
Police officers stand guard outside the house searched by police in relation to the Bondi Beach shooting, at Bonnyrigg, Sydney on December 15, 2025. – Alasdair Pal/Reuters
Neighbor Renato Padilla said he was watching the aftermath of the Bondi tragedy unfolding on television, when all of a sudden his street filled with police cars.
“We were so worried last night that there might be a gunfight and things like that. Or because they said in Bondi there are some explosives in the car,” said Padilla, of a car found parked on nearby Campbell Parade in Bondi that had been fitted with several improvised explosive devices.
Lanyon, the NSW Police Commissioner, urged caution against any member of the community who seeks to further unsettle a shaken city with acts to avenge Sunday’s shooting.
“This is a time for calm. Retribution or acts against any part of any community will not be accepted,” he said.
But the fear now is that the tensions the Australian government had been trying to keep from the country’s borders will bubble up more aggressively than ever, as communities search for answers about what motivated two men to commit such a heinous act, and what authorities did – or didn’t do – to stop it.
CNN’s Rhea Mogul contributed reporting.
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