First funeral of Bondi Beach attack victims takes place

Australia is holding the first funeral for victims of the Bondi Beach mass shooting, with mourners gathering to grieve slain rabbi Eli Schlanger.

The father of five known as the "Bondi Rabbi" will be remembered in a service at Chabad of Bondi Synagogue, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry said.

Large crowds are expected, the group said in a statement to the media.

Gunmen Sajid Akram and his son Naveed opened fire on people thronging the famous Sydney beach for the Jewish festival of Hanukkah on Sunday evening, killing 15 people and wounding dozens more.

Mr Schlanger served as a chaplain for the New South Wales correctional service and a major hospital, according to a website of the Chabad movement, which represents a branch of Hasidic Jews and organised the Bondi event.

"Anyone who knew him knew that he was the very best of us," said Alex Ryvchin from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.

Friends described Mr Schlanger as "just full of light".

The father and son were driven by "Islamic State ideology" when they fired on crowds at Bondi Beach in one of Australia's deadliest mass shootings, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.

A 10-year-old girl and two Holocaust survivors were among those killed, while 42 others were rushed to hospital with gunshot wounds and other injuries.

Authorities said the attack was designed to sow panic among the nation's Jews, but have so far given little detail about the gunmen's deeper motivations.

Mr Albanese gave one of the first hints that the pair had been radicalised by an "ideology of hate".

"It would appear that this was motivated by Islamic State ideology," Mr Albanese told national broadcaster ABC.

"With the rise of ISIS more than a decade ago now, the world has been grappling with extremism and this hateful ideology," he said in a separate interview, using another name for the Islamic State group.

The pair travelled to the Philippines before the shootings and authorities are investigating whether they met Islamist extremists during the trip, Australian media reported.

Manila's immigration department confirmed that the pair spent almost all of November in the Philippines, with their final destination listed as Davao.

The province, on the southern island of Mindanao, has a long history of Islamist insurgencies against central government rule.

Immigration records listed Sajid Akram as an Indian national, which was confirmed by police in India, and his son as an Australian citizen.

Police found a car registered to Naveed Akram parked near the beach in the aftermath of the shooting, in which they found improvised bombs and "two homemade ISIS flags", New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said.

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Authorities are also facing mounting questions over whether they could have acted earlier to foil the attack.

Mr Albanese said Naveed Akram, reportedly an unemployed bricklayer, had come to the attention of Australia's intelligence agency in 2019 but was not considered an imminent threat at the time.

"They interviewed him, they interviewed his family members, they interviewed people around him," Mr Albanese said.

"He was not seen at that time to be a person of interest."

Police are still piecing together the duo's movements before the shooting.

Naveed Akram reportedly told his mother on the day of the attack that he was heading out of the city on a fishing trip.

Instead, authorities believe that he was holed up in a rental apartment with his father plotting the assault.

Carrying long-barrelled guns, they peppered the beach and a nearby park with bullets for 10 minutes before police shot and killed 50-year-old Sajid Akram.

Naveed Akram, 24, remains in a coma in hospital under police guard.

Tougher gun laws

Australia's leaders agreed yesterday to toughen laws that allowed father Sajid Akram to own six guns.

He received his gun licence in 2023, not 2015 as had been earlier stated, police said. Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said gun laws introduced by the previous conservative Liberal-National coalition government following the Port Arthur massacre needed to be re-examined.

Former Liberal Prime Minister John Howard, who introduced the gun restrictions in 1996, said he did not want to see gun law reform become a "diversion" from the need to tackle antisemitism.

Mass shootings have been rare in Australia since a lone gunman killed 35 people in the tourist town of Port Arthur in 1996.

The Port Arthur Massacre sparked a world-leading crackdown that included a gun buyback scheme and limits on semi-automatic weapons.

However, many Australians are now questioning whether those laws are equipped to deal with online sales and a steady rise in privately owned guns.

Memorial of flowers

Israeli Ambassador Amir Maimon visited Bondi and urged the Australian government to take all required steps to secure the lives of Jews in Australia.

"Only Australians of Jewish faith are forced to worship their gods behind closed doors, CCTV, guards," Mr Maimon told reporters in Bondi, after laying flowers at the temporary memorial and paying his respects to the victims.

"My heart is torn apart... it is insane."

A string of anti-Semitic incidents in Australia has unfolded in the past 16 months, prompting the head of the nation's main intelligence agency to declare that anti-Semitism was his top priority in terms of threat to life.

"The last four years, I was very clear. And I was very clear about the dangers of the rise in antisemitism," Mr Maimon said.

At Bondi, the beach was open but was largely empty under overcast skies, as a growing memorial of flowers was established at the Bondi Pavilion, metres from the location of the shootings.

Bondi is Sydney's best-known beach, located about 8.2km from the city centre, and draws hundreds of thousands of international tourists each year.

Desperate to help, Australians have lined up in their thousands to donate blood to the wounded.

Red Cross Australia said more than 7,000 people gave blood on Monday, smashing the previous national record.

Family of Bondi hero in Syria say country is 'proud of him'

The family of the hero who tackled the Bondi Beach gunman has said they are "proud of him", after a number of men in Syria recognised his face from footage released of the attack.

Ahmed al-Ahmed, aged 43, left his hometown in Syria's northwest province of Idlib nearly 20 years ago.

His uncle, Mohammed al-Ahmed, recognised him from the footage circulating online.

"We learned through social media. I called his father and he told me that it was Ahmed. Ahmed is a hero, we're proud of him.

"Syria in general is proud of him," the uncle told Reuters.

The family hails from the town of Nayrab, which was bombed heavily during Syria's nearly 14-year war, which ended when longtime leader Bashar al-Assad was ousted in a rebel offensive launched from Idlib last year.

Mr Ahmed said his nephew left Syria in 2006 after completing a degree at Aleppo University.

He has not been back since.

"Since he was young, he was gallant and a hero," his uncle said, describing him as a happy and passionate person.

"He acted impulsively without thinking who the people were that were being killed - without knowing their religion, if they were Muslim or Christian or Jewish.

"That's what made him jump up and carry out this heroic act," he said.

Ahmed al-Ahmed, who now holds Australian citizenship and has two daughters, remains in a Sydney hospital with gunshot wounds.

He has been hailed as a hero around the world, including by US President Donald Trump.

A GoFundMe campaign set up for him has raised more than A$2.2 million (€1.2 million).

Back at home, the Ahmed family home remains in ruins. Piles of smashed cinderblocks ring the concrete carcass of the two-storey house, whose walls are punctured by shelling.

"This is Ahmed's father's home. It got destroyed during the war. Bombing, bombing from planes, missiles - every type of weapon," Mr Ahmed's cousin, who is also named Mohammad al-Ahmed, told Reuters.

He said his cousin "was the reason that many innocent people who did nothing wrong were saved".

"He will prove to the world that Muslims are peacemakers, not warmongerers," said Mr Ahmed.