[Chungraon = Associate Editor-in-Chief Dongseop David Yeo] Fifteen are left dead after the deadly shooting in Bondi Beach, Australia. Two gunmen were verified to be firing shots from a small bridge adjacent to a car park on the northern end of Bondi Beach at Campbell Parade. Security footage also confirmed that the gunmen were shooting toward a local Hanukkah event taking place in an area of parkland.
The age range of the victims ranged from 10 to 87, and the casualties included a young girl and Holocaust survivors. A majority of the targeted victims were of Jewish descent, and officials have announced that this may be an organized hate crime or act of terrorism against the Jewish populations in Australia.
An additional 42 were transported to local hospitals for their injuries from the incident, and Australian health officials have declared that 27 of the affected were being treated for their injuries, while six of them were left in critical condition.
While the number of casualties is large, it could have been larger until a bystander hadn’t stepped in for an act of pure heroism. Ahmed al Ahmed, a fruit shop owner and father of two children, tackled one of the gunmen and successfully disarmed him, turning the gunman’s rifle onto him.
All of the event sequences and the acts of heroism by the nearby bystanders were caught on security cameras, and authorities are reviewing them now to investigate possible motivations and consequences of this shooting.
More information about the victims is being brought to light, and the eyewitness and family accounts of those murdered truly show the devastation caused by the incident.
Alexander Kleytman, a Holocaust survivor, was killed by the gunmen while trying to shield his wife from the attacks, while one of the rabbis who had organized the Hanukkah event, Rabbi Zalman Lewis, was also named as a casualty.
Information about the gunmen was released by the Australian authorities immediately after the incident. The authorities named the pair of gunmen as Sajid Akram (50) and his son Naveed Akram (24).
New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon reported that Sajid Akram had arrived in Australia on a student visa in 1998 and was a licensed firearms holder, receiving his license as part of a recreational hunting permit. He was found to be tied to six firearms, which the authorities believe were the ones used in the shooting.
Political authorities in Australia and around the world have responded promptly, with Anthony Albanese, the prime minister of Australia, saying that he would immediately revise existing gun laws and create stricter regulations in the next national cabinet meeting.
These regulations were said to include propositions to limit the number of firearms an individual could use and be licensed for and additional review of qualifications for license over periods of time.
/Dongseop David Yeo