Australian inquiry opens public hearings into Bondi Beach shooting

An inquiry into a shooting that killed 15 people at a Hanukkah festival near Australia's Bondi Beach heard Monday that Sydney's Jewish community feared "catastrophe" was coming as antisemitic attacks rose.

The federal royal commission -- the highest level of government inquiry -- was called to probe factors leading to the attack by two gunmen on Jewish families near Australia's best-known beach in December.

"The sharp spike of antisemitism that we have witnessed in Australia has been mirrored in other Western countries and seems clearly linked to events in the Middle East," inquiry chief Virginia Bell said in opening remarks.

"It's important that people understand how quickly those events can prompt ugly displays of hostility towards Jewish Australians simply because they are Jews."

- 'OLDEST HATREDS' -

The inquiry has received thousands of submissions about the impact of "one of society's oldest hatreds", said the counsel assisting the inquiry, Zelie Hegen.

Sheina Gutnick, whose father Reuven Morrison was killed in the Bondi attack, told the inquiry there had been a shift in antisemitism since 2023, when the Gaza war began.

"Antisemitism was allowed to come into the open," she said.

Her refugee parents had met at Bondi Beach, a scene of many happy childhood memories for her.

"Now Bondi holds a really, really heavy weight in our community's heart," she said.

The inquiry heard from witnesses, some granted pseudonyms because of their fear of reprisals, about the impact of antisemitic chants during a protest against the war in Gaza outside Sydney's Opera House in October 2023, shortly after the Hamas attack on Israel.

Jewish community groups recorded 2,062 antisemitic incidents the following year, and parents feared sending children to Jewish schools.

- 'AN UN-AUSTRALIAN THING' -

That summer saw a string of arson and grafitti attacks against synagogues and Jewish businesses in Sydney and Melbourne.

A woman who works with a Jewish security group recounted having to escort people to safety from a Melbourne synagogue in November 2023 on the anniversary of the Nazi Kristallnacht pogrom as a "mob" of around 30 people dressed in black, their faces masked, appeared.

A Jewish woman who grew up near Bondi -- and whose grandparents were Holocaust survivors -- told the inquiry she was "shocked to see flags being burnt at the Opera House -- it was such an un-Australian thing".

She was "incredibly disappointed that police hadn't stepped in before things got as bad as they did", she said.

In her experience, many Australians she worked with had never previously met a Jewish person, and she asked the community to listen when Jewish people "feel like history is repeating itself".

- 'PATRIOTS' -

Alex Ryvchin, chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry who migrated from Ukraine as a child, said many victims of the Bondi attack were from a tight-knit community of refugees from the Soviet Union.

"They were patriots who loved this country," he said, recalling several friends who died.

A firebomb attack on Ryvchin's former family home in January 2025 marked an escalation in antisemitic attacks because it targeted a private home, he said.

"We were on a path to catastrophe," he told the inquiry, detailing death threats he continues to receive.

He sent his children away as he fielded concerned calls from the prime minister, police and the counter-terrorism squad.

"That was January; by December on that same road, three kilometres down, there was a horrific massacre that has transformed us permanently," he said.

Sajid Akram and son Naveed are accused of opening fire as Jewish families thronged Bondi Beach for a Hanukkah celebration in December, carrying out Australia's deadliest mass shooting for 30 years.

Sajid, 50, was shot and killed by police during the assault.

Naveed, 24, an Australian-born citizen who remains in prison, has been charged with terrorism and 15 murders.