“SAW BODIES ON THE GROUND”
Hundreds of police personnel were at Bondi Beach on Monday as locals, witnesses and officials visited a makeshift memorial near the beach’s famous pavilion.
“We were in the water, and next second we see people laying on the floor, a kid was shot, it was probably the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” said Trent Tur, a 19-year-old lifesaver.
“Honestly, it’s terrible. As a community, we can move forward from this, it will be hard but the spirit, the Australian spirit in Bondi, is very high and we can move forward.”
Rabbi Mendel Kastel, whose brother-in-law Eli Schlanger was killed in Sunday’s attack, said it had been a harrowing evening.
“You can very easily become very angry and try to blame people, turn on people, but that’s not what this is about. It’s about a community,” he said.
“We need to step up at a time like this, be there for each other, and come together. And we will, and we will get through this, and we know that. The Australian community will help us do it,” he added.
Local woman Danielle, who declined to give her surname, was at the beach when the shooting occurred and raced to collect her daughter who was attending a bar mitzvah at a function centre near where the alleged shooters were positioned.
“I heard there was a shooting so I bolted there to get my daughter. I could hear gunshots, I saw bodies on the ground. We are used to being scared, we have felt this way since Oct 7.”
Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies. The attack precipitated Israel’s war in Gaza, which has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.
Australia’s Jewish diaspora is small but deeply embedded in the wider community, with about 150,000 people who identify as Jewish in the country of 27 million.
About one-third of them are estimated to live in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, including Bondi. Major cities including Berlin, London and New York stepped up security around Hanukkah events on Sunday following the attack at Bondi.
