Australia is observing a day of mourning on Monday after an anti-Semitic attack on Sunday in which a father and son opened fire on about a thousand people gathered on a beach in Sydney for the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, killing 15 people, including a child, and injuring 42.
On this iconic beach popular with Australians and tourists from around the world, personal belongings still lie on the bloody sand, some twenty hours after the 10-minute massacre that shocked this large country in Oceania, as well as the entire world.
"What we witnessed yesterday was an act of pure evil, anti-Semitism and terrorism," Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said as he laid flowers at the scene on the Pacific coast.
Australia, for which this is the first such massacre since 1996, lowered its flags to half-mast at the decision of Albanese, who also proposed an even stricter gun control law.
Already on Sunday, he condemned "a targeted attack on Australian Jews on the first day of Hanukkah," the nine-day Jewish festival of lights in December. He said the attack was aimed at "all Australians."
Local police chief Mal Lanyon said that "an improvised explosive device was discovered in a car associated with the deceased perpetrator," one of the two attackers, a father, who was killed by police.
And his son, seriously wounded, was the subject of a 2019 investigation by Australian intelligence for links to the jihadist group Islamic State (IS), Australian public broadcaster ABC revealed.
The attackers were Sajid Akram, 50, who entered Australia on a visa in 1998 and was licensed to carry six firearms, and his native-born son Naved Akram, 24, according to police in New South Wales, the state whose capital is Sydney.
The father was killed by the police and the son was hospitalized in critical condition, according to the police and the press.
"Heroes"
Prime Minister Albanese and US President Donald Trump praised the "heroes" who intervened on Sunday.
A viral video circulating on social media shows a man in a parking lot chasing an attacker, catching and disarming him, then pointing a gun at him and chasing him away.
Many world leaders have strongly condemned the attack, which killed 15 people, from a 10-year-old girl to an 87-year-old man. Also killed were 27-year-old Frenchman Dan Elkayam, 41-year-old London-born rabbi Eli Schlanger and Alex Kleytman, a Holocaust survivor born in Ukraine.
At least 42 people were injured.
Donald Trump condemned the attack as "blatantly anti-Semitic."
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that "Europe stands with Australia and Jewish communities around the world."
A series of minor anti-Semitic attacks have sown fear among Australian Jews for more than two years, and Canberra accused Tehran of being behind two of them and expelled the Iranian ambassador four months ago.
Photo: EPA/DEAN LEWINS
