Surveillance cameras captured crucial evidence of Sunday’s Bondi Beach shooting that killed 15 people at a Hanukkah celebration, with investigators reviewing footage Monday as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese condemned the antisemitic terrorism. The prime minister laid flowers at the site while flags flew at half-mast across Australia following the nation’s deadliest gun violence in decades.
Multiple cameras positioned around the beachside park and surrounding businesses recorded the roughly ten-minute attack on approximately 1,000 Jewish community members gathered for holiday observances. The footage provided investigators with detailed timelines of the assault, showing how father-son shooters Sajid Akram, 50, and Naveed Akram, 24, targeted the gathering and how security forces responded.
The video evidence captured the moment officers engaged the attackers, killing the elder Akram and critically wounding the younger, with the father’s death bringing total fatalities to sixteen. Footage also documented the heroic actions of 43-year-old Ahmed al Ahmed wrestling a gun from one shooter despite being wounded. These recordings will be crucial in reconstructing events and may be used in prosecuting the surviving attacker.
Forty people remained hospitalized, including two police officers whose serious injuries had stabilized. Surveillance footage showed victims aged ten to 87 fleeing the violence, providing visual documentation of the terror inflicted on families celebrating together. Investigators were also examining footage from earlier in the day to trace the attackers’ movements and determine how they arrived at the location.
This incident marks Australia’s worst shooting in nearly three decades, with surveillance technology playing a central role in the investigation. The extensive camera coverage typical of popular public spaces provided unprecedented documentation of the attack, though it also raised questions about privacy and the balance between security monitoring and civil liberties. As analysts reviewed hours of footage, the recordings offered both evidence for justice and painful documentation of targeted hatred turned violent.
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