After a shooting on Bondi Beach, a surfer paddles back to shore as a police boat patrols the water.Image: keystone
Where tourists usually stroll and families play on the sand, there is suddenly panic. At least ten people were killed in a shooting on Bondi Beach in Sydney. Eyewitnesses report scenes like something out of a nightmare.
December 14, 2025, 12:23 p.mDecember 14, 2025, 12:27 p.m
Barbara Barkhausen, Sydney / ch media
At least ten people, including one of the alleged perpetrators, have died in an attack on Bondi Beach in Sydney. A second suspected shooter is in police custody; his condition is still unclear. Twelve other people were injured, including two police officers. A suspected improvised explosive device (IED) was also discovered at the scene and was examined by the bomb disposal service.
What is summed up in these sober numbers began on a summer evening that could hardly have been more Australian. Bondi Beach, one of Sydney’s most popular beaches, was actually an idyllic picture this Sunday – with temperatures around 30 degrees and the sun already low. Families sat on the sand, children played by the water, tourists strolled along the promenade when shots shattered the beach idyll.
Videos from the crime scene are spreading on social networks: people running away from the beach, others lying on the ground, first responders kneeling next to the injured. Scenes that are otherwise more associated with the USA than with Australia – a country with strict gun laws and comparatively little gun violence.
During the Jewish community’s Hanukkah celebration
The NSW Ambulance Service said it was alerted at 6:45 p.m. (local time). The service initially confirmed that six people with gunshot wounds had been taken to nearby hospitals. The correction followed later, and the number of deaths and injuries increased dramatically. 25 rescue units were deployed, including helicopters.
The context is particularly explosive. At the time of the shooting, a Jewish community event was taking place on the beach, organized for the first night of Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights. Hundreds of people came together, many families with children.
Alex Ryvchin, co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), said on radio station 2GB that the shooting occurred during the event. The organization’s media director was injured. «Hundreds of people were gathered. It’s a family event,” Ryvchin said. “They heard dozens of popping noises. And people just started running, running over barriers, grabbing their children. It was chaos.” And further: “I don’t think this was an attack that happened by chance on Bondi Beach. I think it was very deliberate and very deliberate.”
“Hell on Earth”
Eyewitness accounts paint a picture of minutes that felt like an eternity. a witness told the public broadcaster ABCthe shooting lasted about ten minutes – “absolute hell on earth”. He saw people lying in pools of blood. Another man told ABC he saw two gunmen dressed in black on a pedestrian bridge near a parking lot, firing at people gathered in the park.
Panic was also spreading further up, in the restaurants overlooking the beach. Elizabeth Mealey, a former journalist and Randwick resident, was sitting in Icebergs restaurant when she heard the shots. «We thought it was fireworks, but it wasn’t. It was something much worse,” she told ABC. “People started running up the beach. It was panic.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese spoke of “shocking and disturbing” scenes that evening. The Premier of New South Wales, Chris Minns, was also “deeply disturbed” by the reports and images from Bondi.
Painful memories
For many Australians, the crime brings back painful memories. It was only in April 2024 that the Bondi district was shaken by a shooting spree. On April 13, 40-year-old Joel Cauchi randomly attacked people with a knife at Westfield Bondi Junction shopping center. Six people were killed and at least twelve others were injured, including a baby. The perpetrator, who suffered from schizophrenia, was caught and shot in the shopping center by police officer Amy Scott.
The renewed act of violence also hits Australia in an already tense security situation. Only the previous August, Albanese had announced a diplomatic step of historic proportions in Canberra: Australia expelled the Iranian ambassador – for the first time since the Second World War, as the government emphasized. At the same time, Canberra closed its embassy in Tehran.
According to the government, Iran is said to have directed at least two attacks on Jewish institutions in Australia: on the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne and on the Lewis’ Continental Kitchen restaurant in Sydney. Tehran rejected the allegations. It is currently unknown whether the Bondi shooting is directly related to these allegations. The police did not comment on this. But the timing – on the first evening of Hanukkah – and the location leave many questions unanswered.
Bondi Beach stands for Australian lightness, summer, freedom and carefreeness. The fact that here, of all places, on a warm Sunday evening, people are running for their lives shocks the country. As investigators examine the background and motives, one feeling remains that is difficult to dispel: that Australia, so far largely spared from such violence, has increasingly become part of a global escalation. (aargauerzeitung.ch)