As the fog begins to clear from the Bondi Beach massacre, the facts are coming into focus. The attack was directed at Jews marking the first evening of Hanukkah. In total some 2,000 attended the event. It appears that hundreds of Chabad Jews were gathered at Bondi Beach for the annual “Chanukah by the Sea” event. As I write this morning, the death toll of Jews murdered at the beach has reached 15. Twenty-seven have been hospitalized. Those killed ranged from 10 to 87 in age. One of the victims was a Holocaust survivor who died while shielding his wife from bullets.
At least one rabbi and one child were killed in the massacre. Rabbi Eli Schlanger was the assistant rabbi at Chabad of Bondi in Sydney. He was the father of five including a baby boy born in October. The world of Chabad is a small community with outposts all over the world supporting Jews and Jewish life. The murder of Rabbi Schlanger will have a bitter resonance.
Chabad’s outposts, such as the one at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, serve the survival of the Jewish people by promoting religious observance. See Jonathan Tolle’s section on Chabad in this current Commentary article.
One obvious theme should emerge from the facts. This is what “globalize the intifada” means. It means the mass murder of Jews à la Hamas.
The perpetrators were a father-son duo. Killed during his murder spree, the father was 50-year-old Sajid Akram. Twenty-four-year old son Naveed Akram was born in Australia.
Akram père arrived in Australia on a 1998 student visa. His student visa was converted into a partner visa in 2001. He remained in the country on a resident return visa. He was a Muslim Pakistani and a licensed firearms owner. He owned six guns. According to a police statement, six such weapons were found at the scene of the massacre.
Twenty-four-old Naveed Akram was born in Australia. He reportedly studied at Central Queensland University in Sydney and Hamdard University in Islamabad as wekk as at Al Murad Institute Institute for Arabic and Quran), where he was described as a model student. You do the math.
Naveed Akram’s participation in the murder spree was interrupted by Ahmed al Ahmed (or some variant). He was wounded in the process of interrupting the murder spree. His refugee parents had only recently arrived from Syria. Muslim or Christian, he is a brave man who proved himself a hero.
Australia prides itself on a regime of strict gun control. Australia’s spineless Prime Minister Anthony Albanese now vows to seek stricter gun control. Stemming the tide of anti-Semitic immigrants and native toleration of anti-Semitism is not on the agenda.
Albanese said Naveed Akram had come to the attention of Australia’s domestic intelligence agency in October 2019. However, after an assessment, authorities found “no indication of any ongoing threat or threat of him engaging in violence.” Maybe Albanese should concentrate on improvements to Australian intelligence and police work. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had more pointed advice than mine for Albanese yesterday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a government meeting in Dimona:
“On August 17, about 4 months ago, I sent Prime Minister Albanese of Australia a letter in which I gave him warning that the Australian government’s policy was promoting and encouraging antisemitism in Australia pic.twitter.com/lZZDFsa91W— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) December 14, 2025
