Does a viral image really show the “leaked Facebook profile” of the “Bondi Beach shooter” and does it reveal he is an Israeli named “David Cohen”? No, that’s not true: The image circulating on social media shows several signs of digital tampering and possible use of AI. Authorities have named “Naveed Akram” and “Sajid Akram” as the shooters in the December 14, 2025 attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach.
An example of the image circulating appeared in a post on X (archived here) where it was published on December 15, 2025 with a caption that read:
Leaked Facebook profile of the Bondi beach shooter before it got deleted. His real name is David Cohen and he’s JEWISH, FROM ISRAEL‼️
This is the image used in the post:
Image source: X.com post by account @Emeliay8gk
The text in the image read:
Leaked Facebook profile of the Bondi beach shooter before it got deleted. His real name is David Cohen and he’s JEWISH, FROM ISRAEL!
Through reverse image searching, Lead Stories located a clearer version of the image (archived here), without extra captions etc. added
Image source: post by @RohitMishra2024 on x.com
News reports about the attack on Bondi Beach on December have identified the perpetrators as “Naveed Akram” and “Sajid Akram”, not “David Cohen”. For example, here is NPR (archived here) based on reporting by The Associated Press:
Naveed Akram, the 24-year-old alleged shooter, was charged on Wednesday after waking from a coma in a Sydney hospital, where he has been since police shot him and his father at Bondi. His father Sajid Akram, 50, died at the scene.
When the contrast on the image is decreased, it becomes immediately obvious large areas of the picture have been digitally tampered with since the background color is not uniformly white as one would expect from a real screenshot:
Image: detail of the alleged “David Cohen” Facebook profile image with contrast decreased by Lead Stories.
The purported screenshot also contained several details typical of AI generated or edited images such as weirdly deformed characters or words (“Ernsage”, “Eopis” or “Feopis”), misspellings (“Add a new Friends”) and references to non-existent people on Facebook (as verified by using Facebook’s “People” search for “Jewish Bronnen“, “Jewish Maridlend“, “Richeal Patiam“, archived here, here and here)
Image: collage of details made by Lead Stories.
Other fact checks
This claim was also investigated by AFP Fact Check and AAP and they came to identical conclusions.
