SYDNEY, Dec 14 (Reuters) – Multiple people were injured and first responders were “working to save lives” on Sunday after a shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, officials said.
Thirteen people were taken to hospital after the shooting, a New South Wales ambulance spokesperson said.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the incident “shocking and distressing”, adding that “emergency responders are on the ground and working to save lives”.
ABC aired footage showing people lying on the ground.
“I saw at least 10 people on the ground and blood everywhere,” 30-year-old local Harry Wilson, who witnessed the shooting, told the Sydney Morning Herald.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said Jewish people who had gone to light the first candle of the Hanukkah holiday on the beach had been attacked by “vile terrorists”.
One of the world’s most famous beaches, Bondi is typically crowded with locals and tourists, especially on warm weekend evenings.
“If we were targeted deliberately in this way, it’s something of a scale that none of us could have ever fathomed. It’s a horrific thing,” Alex Ryvchin, co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, told Sky News, adding his media adviser had been wounded in the attack.
Videos circulating on X appeared to show people on the beach and nearby park scattering as multiple gunshots and police sirens could be heard. One video showed a man dressed in a black shirt firing a large weapon before being tackled by a man in a white t-shirt who wrestled his weapon off him.
Another video showed two men pressed onto the ground by uniformed police on a small pedestrian bridge. Officers could be seen trying to resuscitate on one of the men. Reuters could not immediately verify the footage.
The attack came almost exactly 11 years after a lone gunman took 18 people hostage at the Lindt Cafe in Sydney. Two hostages and the gunman were killed after a 16-hour standoff.
(Reporting by Praveen Menon and Stella Qiu; Additional reporting by Steven Scheer in Jerusalem; Writing by Alasdair Pal and Lincoln Feast; Editing by William Mallard)
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