By Christine Chen, Scott Murdoch and Renju Jose
SYDNEY, Dec 16 (Reuters) – Dozens of people lined up early on Tuesday at Sydney’s Bondi Beach to pay tribute to the 15 victims and those wounded in Sunday’s Hanukkah festival shootings, Australia’s worst mass shooting in nearly 30 years.
The death toll stands at 16 including one of the alleged gunmen, aged 50, who was shot by police on Sunday. The man’s 24-year-old son and alleged accomplice was in critical condition in hospital, police said on Monday.
The pair allegedly fired upon hundreds of people at a Jewish Hanukkah festival being held at Bondi Beach, forcing people to flee and take shelter amid the carnage.
Police have not released the suspects’ names but national broadcaster ABC and other media have identified them as Sajid Akram and his son Naveed Akram.
There are currently 25 survivors receiving care in several Sydney hospitals, officials said.
Ahmed al Ahmed, the 43-year-old Muslim father-of-two who charged at one of the gunmen and seized his rifle, remains in a Sydney hospital with gunshot wounds.
At Bondi, the beach was open on Tuesday 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 8.2 km (5 miles) from the city centre, and draws hundreds of thousands of international tourists each year.
“This is my community. This is my history and I’m watching what’s occurred, and it’s as a tribute and respect to be here,” said Carolyn, 67, a Jewish woman who declined to give her surname.
“Antisemitism has no place here. But what I’m seeing here is hope. I’m seeing people from most communities here doing that. They’re showing their respect, and it’s very important.”
Olivia Robertson, 25, visited the memorial before work.
“This is the country that our grandparents have come to for us to feel safe and to have opportunity,” she said.
“And now this has happened right here in our backyard. It’s pretty shocking.”
TOUGHER GUN LAWS
Australia’s gun laws, considered among the toughest in the world, are now being examined by the federal government, after it was revealed that Sajid Akram had six registered weapons.
Police said he had held a gun licence since 2015. Two flags of militant group Islamic State were found in the gunmen’s vehicle, ABC News reported, without citing a source.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said gun laws introduced by the previous conservative Liberal-National coalition government in 1996 following the Port Arthur massacre needed to be re-examined.
“It is clear now that those laws need to be brought back up to date because it should never be the case that it is physically possible for two people to do what we saw on Sunday,” he told Channel Nine.
U.S. Rabbi Yossi Lazaroff wrote on social media that he was flying to Sydney to be with his son Leibel who was wounded in the shooting.
“Sitting on a very long plane ride to Australia from Texas, while still grappling with the lives lost and communicating with the hospital as my son Leibel goes into multiple surgeries for his life-threatening injuries,” he wrote on X.
The 15 victims ranged from a rabbi who was a father of five, to a Holocaust survivor, to a 10-year-old girl named Matilda, according to interviews, officials and media reports. Two police officers remained in critical but stable condition in hospital, New South Wales police said.
The aunt of 10-year-old Matilda has spoken publicly of her family’s heartbreak, saying they were devastated by her death and struggling to come to terms with her family’s tragedy.
Lina Chernykh told 7NEWS Australia that she was still in disbelief, saying she hoped the reports were not real.
“I am beyond belief that this happened. I look on the phone and I am hoping it’s like a little big joke, not real,” Chernykh said.
She said Matilda’s father, her brother, was overwhelmed by grief and unable to speak with anyone.
Matilda was with her 6-year-old sister, Summer, at the time of the attack.
“I hope she gets through this … and we all get through this,” Chernykh said, adding that no family should have to endure such an experience.
James Larsen, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Australia to the United Nations, said: “An attack on Jewish Australians is an attack on every Australian and our way of life. There is no place for this vile antisemitism in Australia, or anywhere in the world.”
(Reporting by Scott Murdoch and Renju Jose in Sydney; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Stephen Coates)
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