Two suspects have been named by police in the antisemitic mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach that killed more than a dozen people, including a Holocaust survivor, a 10-year-old girl and a rabbi, and injured at least 42 others, according to New South Wales Police, as federal and state governments agreed to overhaul national gun laws.
Australian media identified the two suspected gunmen in the shooting as Sajid Akram, 50, and his son Naveed, 24.
The older man died at the scene after being shot by police, and his son, who was wounded, is in critical condition in the hospital, the BBC reported.
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The massacre follows a wave of antisemitic attacks that have shaken the country over the past year. It was the deadliest shooting in almost three decades in a country with strict gun control laws, one that Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said “forever tarnished” one of the country’s most famous and beloved beaches.
Some victims have been identified
Larisa Kleytman told reporters outside Sydney’s St Vincent’s Hospital that her husband, Alexander Kleytman, had been killed, according to media reports.
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The couple, who were attending the event with their children and grandchildren, were both Holocaust survivors who had moved to Australia from Ukraine.
“I have no husband. I don’t know where is his body. Nobody can give me any answer,” Larisa Kleytman said on Sunday.
“We were standing and suddenly came the ‘boom boom,’ and everybody fell down. At this moment he was behind me and at one moment he decided to go close to me. He pushed his body up because he wanted to stay near me,” she told the Australian.
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Also among the dead is Eli Schlanger, 41, a key organizer of the gathering and father of five.
His death was confirmed by his cousin, Rabbi Zalman Lewis.
“My dear cousin, Rabbi Eli Schlanger, was murdered in today’s terrorist attack in Sydney,” Zalman wrote in an Instagram post. “He leaves behind his wife & young children, as well as my uncle & aunt & siblings … He was truly an incredible guy”.
According to the Chabad of Bondi, where Schlanger served as the assistant rabbi, his youngest child is two months old.
“The Chanukah event on Bondi Beach has become a crown jewel of the Sydney Jewish community over the decades, with thousands attending the family event during what is summer there,” it wrote in a statement.
Other victims identified are Reuven Morrison, French national Dan Elkayam, a 10-year-old girl named by authorities as Matilda, and Rabbi Yaakov Levitan, who served as secretary of the Sydney Beth Din and worked at the BINA Center, it added.
Details on the victims are still emerging.
Man who tackled gunman hailed as a hero
Footage of a man appearing to tackle and disarm one gunman, before pointing the man’s weapon at him, then setting the gun on the ground, has been widely circulated online.
The man who disarmed one of the gunmen was identified as Ahmed al-Ahmed and has been hailed as a hero by Albanese, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns and many others.
Al-Ahmed, a 43-year-old father of two, was shot four times in the shoulder during his altercation with the gunman, his parents told ABC News Australia. He remains in a stable but critical condition at a Sydney hospital.
“My son is a hero,” the man’s father, Mohamed Fateh Al Ahmed, said, telling reporters that al-Ahmed had served as a police officer and in the Central Security Forces.
“My son has always been brave. He helps people, he’s like that,” his mother, Malakeh Hasan al-Ahmed, added.
Albanese said al-Ahmed “took the gun off that perpetrator at great risk to himself and suffered serious injury as a result of that, and is currently going through operations today in hospital.”
Minns visited al-Ahmed in hospital and commended the “real-life hero” in an Instagram post on Monday.
“Last night, his incredible bravery no doubt saved countless lives when he disarmed a terrorist at enormous personal risk,” Minns wrote. “There is no doubt that more lives would have been lost if not for Ahmed’s selfless courage.”
One of al-Ahmed’s cousins, Mustafa al-Asaad, told the Al Araby television network that his relative intervened in a “humanitarian act.”
“When he saw people dying and their families being shot, he couldn’t bear to see people dying,” he said.
“It was a humanitarian act, more than anything else. It was a matter of conscience.… He’s very proud that he saved even one life.”
New gun laws to be proposed
Albanese has proposed introducing stricter national gun laws following the shooting, including limiting the number of guns a licensed carrier can own, after it was revealed that the older suspect had obtained six guns legally and held a gun licence for decades, police told reporters.
“The government is prepared to take whatever action is necessary. Included in that is the need for tougher gun laws,” Albanese told reporters.
“People’s circumstances can change. People can be radicalized over a period of time. Licences should not be in perpetuity.”
— With files from The Associated Press
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