Officials said 16 people are dead after gunmen targeted the attendees of a Jewish community event on Sunday in Australia’s Bondi Beach. Another 40 people were hospitalized with injuries, including a child and two officers, according to police. Two of the suspects were identified as a father and a son, according to Mal Lanyon, the police commissioner of New South Wales.

The 50-year-old father was killed, and the son — identified as 24-year-old Naveed Akram, a Pakistani national based in Sydney, according to a U.S. intelligence briefing and a driver’s license provided by Australian police — was in custody in critical but stable condition, Lanyon said.

Australian officials and international leaders have condemned it as an antisemitic terrorist attack.

Police said they expect the death toll to climb. Here is what we know so far.

Gunfire broke out at a Hanukkah celebration

The attack took place during a Jewish holiday celebration held to mark the first day of Hanukkah. More than 1,000 people were on the beach, in a suburb of Sydney, when shots rang out, said New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon, who officially declared the shooting a “terrorist incident.”

Numerous Australian officials have characterized the shooting as targeted. New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said it “was designed to target Sydney’s Jewish community.”

“This is a targeted attack on Jewish Australians on the first day of Hanukkah — which should be a day of joy, a celebration of faith — an act of evil antisemitism, terrorism, that has struck the heart of our nation,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said at a news conference. 

Video footage recorded by civilians showed frightened crowds of beachgoers fleeing the area as gunshots went off in the background.

Neither officials nor police have identified the victims of the attack. Chabad, a global organization representing a branch of ultra-Orthodox Judaism, said Rabbi Eli Schlanger, with Chabad of Bondi, was among the dead, the Associated Press reported. Schlanger had been a key organizer of the Hanukkah event on Bondi Beach, according to the organization. 

2 suspects identified as father and son

Australian authorities said two gunmen were suspected of carrying out the deadly mass shooting, a rare occurrence in a country where gun violence is uncommon.

Lanyon said the deceased suspect was previously known to the New South Wales police force. In addition to the 50-year-old gunman killed at the scene of the attack, another was hospitalized with serious injuries, he said. The surviving gunman, the 24-year-old son, has been taken into custody. The commissioner later said officers were not looking for an additional suspect.

Six licensed firearms were found at the scene, Lanyon said, adding that they all belong to the father. The police commissioner added that the older suspect had a gun licence for about ten years.

“We will look at the motives behind this attack and I think it is important as part of the investigation,” he said.

A man has been lauded as a hero and praised by the police commissioner for tackling one suspect and disarming him in dramatic video footage recorded by a bystander along Campbell Parade, a main street that wraps around Bondi Beach. In the footage, the man could be seen crouched in hiding behind a parked car before wrestling the suspect and taking his weapon.

Australian news outlets have identified the man seen disarming the suspect as fruit shop owner Ahmed al Ahmed, citing his relatives.

Officers found explosive devices 

Shortly after the shooting took place, officers who responded to the scene discovered a vehicle along Campbell Parade and believed there were several improvised explosive devices inside of it, Lanyon said. The vehicle was linked to the deceased gunman, according to the police commissioner. A rescue bomb disposal crew was at the scene.

Rising antisemitism in Australia

Although Australia rarely experiences mass shootings, after implementing stringent gun reform laws in the wake of a deadly 1996 massacre in Tasmania’s Port Arthur, antisemitic incidents have been on the rise in the country since the war in Gaza began in 2023. 

The Australian government appointed special envoys in 2024 to address spiking antisemitism, as well as Islamophobia, in its communities. But attacks still happened this year. One, in July, involved an arsonist who set fire to the door of a synagogue in Melbourne, while worshippers were inside.

World leaders react

The attack on Bondi Beach drew widespread condemnation from leaders across the globe. 

In the U.S., Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke out against antisemitism in a social media post, which said: “Antisemitism has no place in this world. Our prayers are with the victims of this horrific attack, the Jewish community, and the people of Australia.” 

Rubio joined officials from numerous countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Finland, New Zealand, India, Qatar and Pakistan, who similarly shared remarks expressing sympathy for the victims and solidarity with Jewish communities, as well as denouncing antisemitism. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was among the officials in his country who responded publicly to the attack in Australia. In a statement released by his office, Netanyahu criticized Albanese for supporting a Palestinian state and said such support fuels antisemitism.

“Your call for a Palestinian state pours fuel on the antisemitic fire,” Netanyahu’s statement read, quoting a letter that the Israeli prime minister said he wrote to Albanese in August. “It rewards Hamas terrorists. It emboldens those who menace Australian Jews and encourages the Jew hatred now stalking your streets.”

The American Jewish Committee, an advocacy group and charity organization, said the attack “comes after repeated warnings, including from the Australian Jewish community itself,” adding that “allowing antisemitic rhetoric and demonstrations to go unchecked can—and does—lead to violence and death.”