A father and son carried out the shooting on Bondi Beach in Sydney

Australian police said that the gunmen who killed 15 people during a Jewish celebration on Bondi Beach in Sydney were a father and his son, at a time when Australia began mourning the victims of the worst incident of armed violence the country has witnessed in nearly 30 years.

The police added in a press conference that the 50-year-old father was killed at the site of the attack, bringing the death toll to 16, while his 24-year-old son was in critical condition in the hospital. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation and other local media revealed the identity of the two and said that the father was Sajid Akram and his son was Naveed Akram.
Officials described the shooting as an anti-Semitic attack.

Police said that 40 people were still receiving treatment in hospital after the attack, including two policemen, who were in serious but stable condition. The ages of the victims ranged from ten to 87 years.

Witnesses said that the shooting, which took place on the famous beach on a hot evening, lasted about 10 minutes, and prompted hundreds of beachgoers to disperse on the sand and escape into the streets and nearby parks. Police said that about a thousand people were participating in the Jewish Hanukkah celebration, which was held in a small park near the beach.
Police investigations are still ongoing and the number of personnel in Jewish areas has been increased.

The authorities said that the death toll would have been much higher had it not been for the intervention of a bystander, who local media reported was a 43-year-old fruit shop owner named Ahmed Al-Ahmad. Video footage showed the man attacking one of the gunmen from behind, clashing with him, and snatching the gun from his hand.

For his part, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described the attack as a “dark moment for our nation” and said that the police and security services were conducting thorough investigations to find out the motives for the attack.

Albanese visited Bondi Beach this morning to place flowers near the site of the attack.

He said, “What we witnessed yesterday was a purely evil act, a terrorist act on our soil in a symbolic Australian location.”

Albanese noted that many world leaders, including US President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron, contacted him and thanked them for their solidarity.

Australian Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said that the father, Sajid Akram, had arrived in Australia in 1998 on a student visa, while his son was born in Australia.

The police did not disclose any details about the weapons used in the attack, but video clips from the site of the event showed the two men shooting what appeared to be a handgun and a hunting rifle.

The New South Wales Police Commissioner told reporters, “We are in the process of examining the security file of the two individuals. At this stage, we know very little about them.”