14 Dec 2025: Bondi Beach Australia Hanukkah Attack

[brihard]

Breaking overnight: 11 killed, dozens injured in mass shooting at a gathering marking the start of Hanukkah in Bondi Beach, New South Wales, Australia. Shooters stopped.

Bondi Beach gunmen who killed 15 after targeting Jewish celebration were father and son, police say

The 50-year-old father has been confirmed dead, while the 24-year-old son is in critical condition, police say. Dozens of victims are in hospital.

www.bbc.com

 

[Czech_pivo]

Breaking overnight: 11 killed, dozens injured in mass shooting at a gathering marking the start of Hanukkah in Bondi Beach, New South Wales, Australia. Shooters stopped.

Bondi Beach gunmen who killed 15 after targeting Jewish celebration were father and son, police say

The 50-year-old father has been confirmed dead, while the 24-year-old son is in critical condition, police say. Dozens of victims are in hospital.

www.bbc.com

Unreal. Sad and demoralizing.

 

[brihard]

Lengthy video of most of the shooting. Shocking but not particularly graphic. some predictable Australian vulgarity. You see both shooters dropped at a distance. Some fucking idiot civilians go onto to scene, probably drunk, start fighting each other and the cops til enough cops show up.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2000167034811027556

From the long video:

Start: active shooting from an elevated foot bridge down onto the beach at slow rate with what look to be hunting rifles and/or shotguns

Photo of a shooter:

https://twitter.com/x/status/2000132648849887409

Part way through, shooter #1 ‘white pants’ comes down off the bridge and gets tackled and disarmed but runs back to his partner. For context this clip happens around 3:30 in the long video.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2000132891217711334

Bystander Ahmed el Ahmed allegedly made the tackle and was wounded twice.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2000187787954561303

Police initially struggled to control the immediate scene. Some bystanders badly needed to just get kicked down the stairs or a baton in the teeth. One was nearly shot.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2000124702715740544

 

[Quirky]

Doesn't Australia have some of the strictest gun control laws in the world?

 

[PMedMoe]

Doesn't Australia have some of the strictest gun control laws in the world?

Yes they do.

Australia has a dramatically lower rate of shootings and firearm-related deaths compared to the United States, particularly since implementing strict national gun control laws in 1996. The U.S. firearm homicide rate is approximately 33 times greater than Australia's.

 

[ytz]

Doesn't Australia have some of the strictest gun control laws in the world?

Exactly why those are long guns and not ARs.

 

[brihard]

Doesn't Australia have some of the strictest gun control laws in the world?

Yes they do. You’ll note in the videos the very slow rate of fire, and the photo appears to show a shotgun and a hunting rifle, both of which can still be legally obtained there. While I would be surprised if both of the shooters legally owned firearms, these sorts of long guns would be more readily ‘in circulation’ in Australia. Given the target environment they had, how long it went on, and how many victims there already were, the number of casualties would likely have been far higher had they had better firearms more suitable for such an attack.

Looking at it from a police lens, in various videos I’ve seen, I don’t think I’ve seen a responding patrol officer with a long gun, and few were wearing plates. I don’t know what NSW protocol for active shooter is or how many have completed active shooter training. You can definitely see at about 4:00 in the long video when the shooters first take return fire and their behaviour changes radically. At that point it became a shootout with police, two of whom were seriously wounded.

That’s a shitty, shitty fight to have to fight with only pistols…

 

[Kirkhill]

Guessing....

The weapon secured from white pants and his handling of the weapon appeared congruent with a SMLE. The chap on the bridge was dropping mags and the weapon appeared to have a pistol grip, a straight stock and lacked furniture around the barrel, congruent with an FN.

Both of those were in Aussie service. I know Aussie civilians had access to SMLEs.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Exactly why those are long guns and not ARs.

At close ranges "hunting rifles" and shotgun are considerably more devastating than AR15s.


Bets on whether they've already started celebrating in Toronto?

 

[brihard]

First link I shared to the full video seems to be down, here’s another:

https://twitter.com/x/status/2000187054530179119

Guessing....

The weapon secured from white pants and his handling of the weapon appeared congruent with a SMLE. The chap on the bridge was dropping mags and the weapon appeared to have a pistol grip, a straight stock and lacked furniture around the barrel, congruent with an FN.

Both of those were in Aussie service. I know Aussie civilians had access to SMLEs.

EDIT BELOW: Tough to say, but watching again slower and zooming in you may be right a least to the extent of black pants having a semi auto rifle. If so he’s firing in a very controlled manner and I’d have thought he’d step it up once cops arrived and engaged him. I do not agree it was a FAL or similar.
A new video shows black pants shooting a bolt gun, see below.

I can’t yet say I’m confident he’a dropping mags though one black item drops early. In some of the video of the shooters and police being mobbed you can see a bunch of what look like fired 12ga shotgun shells on the ground. At the distance they were at, that was probably not very effective for killing but may have caused a lot of wounds.

I think we can see three guns in play:
- White pants, when tackled, appears to have had a quite long probable rifle. It looks like he’s working a bolt when tackled. Moderate confidence I’ll say bolt gun.

- Black pants is firing a bolt action, looks like a straight pull bolt that he cycles quickly:

https://twitter.com/x/status/2000248316303643063

- Another long gun is on the bridge and seen being moved by black pants. A still photo shows a long gun on the bridge railing next to him with a shot shell saddle on the stock, and black pants looks to have a belt around his waist full of shot shells. I believe the loose gun was a shotgun of some type.



- Close up video of the arrest shows a long gun set aside near black pants, consistent with the photo where he’s holding one. Looks like a hunting style rifle with some sort of optic, I believe this is the straight pull bolt action black pants was firing.



- Close up videos of arrest/first aid show the bridge littered with red shot shells as well as what looks like spent brass from a centre fire rifle, and I want to say it’s bigger- .303, .308, 7.62, somewhere around there.

- I’ve yet to clearly identify a dropped magazine, but that doesn’t mean there are none. Something falls early in the video and he appeared to reach for his waist/cheat as if reloading from a pocket or pouch. In one video where cops are doing CPR on white pants we can see an object bottom right that might be a box magazine. If so, it’s not high capacity:



So, tentatively, I think there’s a bolt action rifle (white pants, disarmed), a civilian pattern shotgun (discarded on the bridge but retained by black pants), and another bolt action rifle (fired by black pants).

Best I can do with Twitter-grade video on an iPhone, sorry.

By now police know what the firearms are more or less, whether the individuals were licensed to possess firearms, and probably if either of them owned these. If they haven’t yet his houses with search warrants that will happen soon. They’ll be getting into any and all electronic devices they can. They worked a suspected IED on a suspect vehicle, not sure if that was legit. Australian Federal Police and ASIS will have already run everything they have on these guys and probably sent selectors out to five eyes as well. Police probably by now have a very good but tentative idea of who the shooters are, their legal status in Australia, and any past police history. Intelligence likewise; I donmt know how readily ASIS shares with Australian police.

If the wounded shooter survives they’ll of course look to interview him as soon as he’s stable enough. Right now they will absolutely be prioritizing identifying if there’s a larger plot or conspirators/facilitators outstanding.

 

[Rifleman62]

Bets on whether they've already started celebrating in Toronto?

While the Toronto Police watch.

 

[Cloud Cover]

Clearer view. Link broken already.

Some point blank executions.

Little creeps. Hope the guy that lived just rots in he

 

[Kirkhill]

First link I shared to the full video seems to be down, here’s another:

https://twitter.com/x/status/2000187054530179119

EDIT BELOW: Tough to say, but watching again slower and zooming in you may be right a least to the extent of black pants having a semi auto rifle. If so he’s firing in a very controlled manner and I’d have thought he’d step it up once cops arrived and engaged him. I do not agree it was a FAL or similar.
A new video shows black pants shooting a bolt gun, see below.

I can’t yet say I’m confident he’a dropping mags though one black item drops early. In some of the video of the shooters and police being mobbed you can see a bunch of what look like fired 12ga shotgun shells on the ground. At the distance they were at, that was probably not very effective for killing but may have caused a lot of wounds.

I think we can see three guns in play:
- White pants, when tackled, appears to have had a quite long probable rifle. It looks like he’s working a bolt when tackled. Moderate confidence I’ll say bolt gun.

- Black pants is firing a bolt action, looks like a straight pull bolt that he cycles quickly:

https://twitter.com/x/status/2000248316303643063

- Another long gun is on the bridge and seen being moved by black pants. A still photo shows a long gun on the bridge railing next to him with a shot shell saddle on the stock, and black pants looks to have a belt around his waist full of shot shells. I believe the loose gun was a shotgun of some type.

View attachment 97197

- Close up video of the arrest shows a long gun set aside near black pants, consistent with the photo where he’s holding one. Looks like a hunting style rifle with some sort of optic, I believe this is the straight pull bolt action black pants was firing.

View attachment 97196

- Close up videos of arrest/first aid show the bridge littered with red shot shells as well as what looks like spent brass from a centre fire rifle, and I want to say it’s bigger- .303, .308, 7.62, somewhere around there.

- I’ve yet to clearly identify a dropped magazine, but that doesn’t mean there are none. Something falls early in the video and he appeared to reach for his waist/cheat as if reloading from a pocket or pouch. In one video where cops are doing CPR on white pants we can see an object bottom right that might be a box magazine. If so, it’s not high capacity:

View attachment 97195

So, tentatively, I think there’s a bolt action rifle (white pants, disarmed), a civilian pattern shotgun (discarded on the bridge but retained by black pants), and another bolt action rifle (fired by black pants).

Best I can do with Twitter-grade video on an iPhone, sorry.

By now police know what the firearms are more or less, whether the individuals were licensed to possess firearms, and probably if either of them owned these. If they haven’t yet his houses with search warrants that will happen soon. They’ll be getting into any and all electronic devices they can. They worked a suspected IED on a suspect vehicle, not sure if that was legit. Australian Federal Police and ASIS will have already run everything they have on these guys and probably sent selectors out to five eyes as well. Police probably by now have a very good but tentative idea of who the shooters are, their legal status in Australia, and any past police history. Intelligence likewise; I donmt know how readily ASIS shares with Australian police.

If the wounded shooter survives they’ll of course look to interview him as soon as he’s stable enough. Right now they will absolutely be prioritizing identifying if there’s a larger plot or conspirators/facilitators outstanding.

The sounds in the video also suggested a larger round, particularly when contrasted with the sound of the returned fire, presumably from police pistols. More bang than crack.

 

[IKnowNothing]

@brihard looking at the stock shape, bulky straight pull bolt, and the orange and black mag you spotted I'm guessing Beretta BRX-1, which is available for sale in Australia.

 

[Fabius]

It’s interesting to see the discussion here focused on the firearms used. That’s likely due to a professional interest but it’s ultimately meaningless.

Hopefully the broader societal discussion does not devolve into a discussion about firearms and action types. That will only further the illiberal agenda at play in Australia, the Commonwealth and greater western democracies.

A discussion into societies growing antisemitism, and tolerance of various illiberal views and movements would be more useful (Perhaps the paradox of tolerance is a better description than illiberal).

 

[Kirkhill]

Rifleman identified as Naveed Akram
Some question as to the identity of the citizen who stripped the rifle from "white pants"
Most reports identify the citizen as Ahmed al Ahmed.

 

[brihard]

It’s interesting to see the discussion here focused on the firearms used. That’s likely due to a professional interest but it’s ultimately meaningless.

Hopefully the broader societal discussion does not devolve into a discussion about firearms and action types. That will only further the illiberal agenda at play in Australia, the Commonwealth and greater western democracies.

A discussion into societies growing antisemitism, and tolerance of various illiberal views and movements would be more useful.

It’s some of the information that can immediately be ascertained from the plethora of videos available. As we await more to work with, that’s what we’ve got for now. It’s relevant for immediately understanding what was going on, what police were up against, and, critically, how easily someone else could do it. And that’s “pretty easily”. But I’ll say as a cop who occasionally still teaches active shooter stuff- I’m glad they only had bolt guns and a shotgun. As terrible as this was, with better tools it could have been far worse. Though the corollary to that - and I say this knowing my info is far from perfect - is that the NSW police did not appear remotely adequately equipped for this threat. I didn’t see any long guns in the hands of responding police.

I think we can all agree there’s a fairly obvious general motive here of killing Jews. There’s probably more to the ‘why’ than just that. I already listed above some of the other investigative steps that I’m sure are happening - since they reply, for instance, I’ve seen reports of police searching a house in the region. Preliminary info from search warrants and device searches will take time, so it’ll be a while before we have anything reliable about if these two had any larger affiliation.

I’d be interested to know what the pre-planned police presence was, and how those officers responded. From video it looks like there were a couple of parked emergency vehicles; I suspect for a party this side there were a couple cops deployed as per routine for large events.

And, as I say all this, I’m mindful of two officers shot and I’m hearing bad rumours about one. I hope a failure by senior police leadership isn’t a part of this but I’m not confident it won’t be.

 

[The Bread Guy]

It’s interesting to see the discussion here focused on the firearms used. That’s likely due to a professional interest but it’s ultimately meaningless.

Hopefully the broader societal discussion does not devolve into a discussion about firearms and action types. That will only further the illiberal agenda at play in Australia, the Commonwealth and greater western democracies.

A discussion into societies growing antisemitism, and tolerance of various illiberal views and movements would be more useful (Perhaps the paradox of tolerance is a better description than illiberal).

Great point, but we shouldn't be surprised to see technical and/or tactical discussion in forums where most of the participants are serving/ex-military/LEO, or people with big interests in the same - especially outside the political forums.

Given how a few other technical/tactical threads have gone (including a few locked because politics couldn't be left out or discussed in a civil fashion), there are various places where the very valid discussion of the political dimensions of antisemitism, paradox of tolerance and illiberal views can take place. Some examples:

• 2020 Breonna Taylor Shooting
• Attempted assassination of Donald Trump 13 July 2024
• 2020 Kenosha IL Shooting

If there's a desire to discuss more of this kind of debate, let the staff team know & we can easily move the thread into a political zone where the political discussion rules of engagement established by the site owner are in play.

Thanks for the reminder that it's more than just the hardware - much appreciated.

Army.ca Staff

 

[Jarnhamar]

But I’ll say as a cop who occasionally still teaches active shooter stuff- I’m glad they only had bolt guns and a shotgun. As terrible as this was, with better tools it could have been far worse.

This would make for an interesting discussion separately. 11 deaths per incident is about the average for US mass shooting fatalities using so-called assault style weapons.

 

[brihard]

This would make for an interesting discussion separately. 11 deaths per incident is about the average for US mass shooting fatalities using so-called assault style weapons.

I’m not equipped with the stats to speak to that.

Looking at this situation from a tactical lens, the shooters (and actual multiple shooters is rare) really stacked the deck in their favour. They were shooting initially from the high ground down onto a mass crowd at a beachfront park. Not a lot of places for victims to take cover.

With more photos out now I’m wondering if white pants actually had a straight pull bolt action shotgun? This appears to be what was taken from him. He was clearly cycling an action in several videos.