Australia honoured the victims on Sunday of a gun attack a week earlier on a seaside Hanukkah celebration, as the prime minister announced a review of the country’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
The nation marked a day of reflection to honour the 15 people killed and the dozens wounded in the attack by two gunmen at Sydney’s Bondi Beach. With security tight and flags at half-staff on government buildings, a minute of silence was held at 6:47pm (12:47pm PKT), the time the attack began.
Television and radio networks paused for a minute’s silence.
Tens of thousands, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and other leaders, attended a memorial event at Bondi Beach under a heavy police presence, including snipers on rooftops and police boats in the waters.
Albanese was booed by the crowd on arrival and later when the speaker mentioned his name during the memorial. He sat in the front row wearing a kippah, the traditional Jewish cap.
Albanese, under pressure from critics who say his centre-left government has not done enough to curb a surge in antisemitism since the start of the war in Gaza, was not scheduled to speak at the event.
“We have lost our innocence….last week took our innocence,” David Ossip, the president of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, said in a speech to start the proceedings.
“Like the grass here at Bondi was stained with blood, so, too, has our nation been stained. We have landed up in a dark place. But friends, Hanukkah teaches us that light can illuminate even the bleakest of places. A single act of courage, a single flame of hope, can give us direction and point the path forward.”
Also present at the memorial was the father of Ahmed al Ahmed, hailed as the ‘Bondi Hero’ for wrestling a gun from one of the attackers.
“Ahmed has asked me to pass on the following message to us all: ‘The Lord is close to the broken-hearted. Today I stand with you, my brothers and sisters’,” Ossip said.
Authorities invited Australians to light a candle on Sunday evening, the start of the eighth and final day of the Jewish festival of lights, “as a quiet act of remembrance with family, friends or loved ones” of the victims of the attack.
