On Sunday, December 14, 2025, hundreds of Jews in Sydney, Australia gathered together beside Bondi Beach to celebrate the coming of Hanukkah. The last thing the crowd expected was for the event to be stormed by gunmen.

The gunmen, 24-year-old Naveed Akram and his 50-year-old father, Sajid Akram, opened fire on the crowd, slaughtering 15 individuals and injuring at least 40 others. Sajid Akram was pronounced dead on the scene after being shot down by police. Though his son also faced gunshot wounds, he survived the attack and has since been charged with counts of both murder and attempted murder. Moreover, footage from the massacre captured the actions of civilian Ahmed Al Ahmed, who wrestled one of the gunmen, seized his weapon, and injured him.

Police have labeled the shooting as a “terrorist attack”, seemingly due to the connection that investigators have drawn between the gunmen and the Islamic State group, a terror organization. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reinforced these suspicions by confirming “the presence of Islamic State flags in the vehicle [of the gunmen] that has been seized”.