Two suspects have been named by police within the antisemitic mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach that killed greater than a dozen people, including a Holocaust survivor, a 10-year-old girl and a rabbi, and injured not less than 42 others, in line with Recent South Wales Police, as federal and state governments agreed to overhaul national gun laws.
Australian media identified the 2 suspected gunmen within the shooting as Sajid Akram, 50, and his son Naveed, 24.
The older man died on the scene after being shot by police, and his son, who was wounded, is in critical condition within the hospital, the BBC reported.
The massacre follows a wave of antisemitic attacks which have shaken the country over the past yr. It was the deadliest shooting in almost three a long time in a rustic with strict gun control laws, one which Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said “perpetually tarnished” considered 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, in line with media reports.
The couple, who were attending the event with their children and grandchildren, were each Holocaust survivors who had moved to Australia from Ukraine.
“I even have no husband. I don’t know where is his body. No one may give me any answer,” Larisa Kleytman said on Sunday.
“We were standing and suddenly got here the ‘boom boom,’ and everybody fell down. At this moment he was behind me and at one moment he decided to go near me. He pushed his body up because he desired to stay near me,” she told the Australian.
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Also among the many dead is Eli Schlanger, 41, a key organizer of the gathering and father of 5.
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, in addition to my uncle & aunt & siblings … He was truly an incredible guy”.
In keeping with the Chabad of Bondi, where Schlanger served because the assistant rabbi, his youngest child is 2 months old.
“The Chanukah event on Bondi Beach has develop into a crown jewel of the Sydney Jewish community over the a long time, with hundreds attending the family event during what’s summer there,” it wrote in an announcement.
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 on the BINA Center, it added.
Details on the victims are still emerging.
Man who tackled gunman hailed as a hero
Footage of a person appearing to tackle and disarm one gunman, before pointing the person’s weapon at him, then setting the gun on the bottom, has been widely circulated online.
The person who disarmed considered one of the gunmen was identified as Ahmed al-Ahmed and has been hailed as a hero by Albanese, Recent South Wales Premier Chris Minns and lots of others.
Al-Ahmed, a 43-year-old father of two, was shot 4 times within the shoulder during his altercation with the gunman, his parents told ABC News Australia. He stays in a stable but critical condition at a Sydney hospital.
“My son is a hero,” the person’s father, Mohamed Fateh Al Ahmed, said, telling reporters that al-Ahmed had served as a police officer and within the Central Security Forces.
“My son has at all times 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 because of this 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 little doubt saved countless lives when he disarmed a terrorist at enormous personal risk,” Minns wrote. “There is no such thing as a doubt that more lives would have been lost if not for Ahmed’s selfless courage.”
Certainly 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, greater than the rest. It was a matter of conscience.… He’s very proud that he saved even one life.”
Recent gun laws to be proposed
Albanese has proposed introducing stricter national gun laws following the shooting, including limiting the variety 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 a long time, police told reporters.
“The federal government is ready to take whatever motion is needed. Included in that’s the need for tougher gun laws,” Albanese told reporters.
“People’s circumstances can change. People could be radicalized over a time frame. Licences shouldn’t be in perpetuity.”
— With files from The Associated Press
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