Two gunmen opened fire on a family Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach on December 14, 2025, and killed ten people in the first twenty-nine seconds. An eleventh victim was shot during that same burst but survived. By the time the gunfire stopped, fifteen people lay dead, the youngest a ten-year-old child, and three police officers had been wounded. The Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion is now pulling apart every decision, warning, and resource shift that preceded the worst terror attack on Australian soil in a generation.
Counsel Assisting Richard Lancaster SC laid out the arithmetic in blunt terms during the commission's hearings:
"Of the 15 innocent people killed, 10 lost their lives in the first 29 seconds of the attack, while another person was shot during that time but survived their injuries."
The attackers fired from a footbridge near the Chanukah by the Sea event, a family gathering marking the first night of Hanukkah. Four NSW Police officers were on the scene when the shooting started. Within five minutes that number rose to eleven. Within seven minutes both gunmen had been shot. But the speed of the police response could not undo what half a minute of unchecked gunfire had already accomplished.
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett confirmed the attack was "motivated by Islamic State ideology," a finding echoed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. The gunmen were identified as Sajid Akram, 50, and his son Naveed Akram, 24. Investigators found ISIS flags and homemade explosive devices in the younger Akram's vehicle. Among the dead was a Holocaust survivor.
Both men had traveled to the Philippines from November 1 through November 28, 2025, just sixteen days before the massacre. The purpose of the trip remains under investigation, though police reported the pair obtained military training there. Naveed Akram had been investigated for ISIS ties as far back as 2019 but was cleared as non-threatening. One of the two survived the police engagement and has been charged; specific charges have not been made public.
The commission hearings have exposed a cascade of missed signals. Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Stephen Nutt testified that authorities watched antisemitic activity escalate sharply after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. He described the trajectory in plain language:
"We saw increasing antisemitic chants. We saw gatherings where praising around the attack was occurring. We also saw an increasingly open display of prohibited hate symbols, specifically where we were concerned was around the symbols of prescribed terrorist organisations, including Hamas and Hezbollah."
Nutt told the commission there was "absolutely a concern that the antisemitism could escalate to actual terrorist acts." The numbers bear that out. In 2020 Australia recorded 40 hate crimes against Jews. By 2025 that figure had ballooned to 841 antisemitic incidents. In just the first quarter of 2026, after the massacre, another 287 incidents were logged.
The trajectory was not invisible to foreign allies, either. Senior Israeli intelligence officials warned Australian authorities months before the attack about Iranian-directed terror infrastructure targeting Jewish communities, Fox News reported. One Israeli official said bluntly: "We stopped a few ticking bombs. The target was on people's heads." Australia later expelled Iran's ambassador after accusing Tehran of directing or enabling attacks against Jewish targets.
Yet the Chanukah by the Sea celebration received no formal threat assessment from NSW Police. Assistant Commissioner Leanne McCusker told the commission that such assessments were typically reserved for larger events, New Year's Eve, Australia Day, Mardi Gras. She acknowledged the threat to the Jewish community was at a "concerning" level and said she could "see no reason" why assessments couldn't be completed for Hanukkah celebrations. She did not confirm whether one would be completed for future events.
Twelve volunteers from the Community Security Group NSW attended the 2025 event. Whether NSW Police had been present at the same event in 2023 or 2024 went unanswered at the hearing.
An interim report by Royal Commissioner Virginia Bell found that ASIO's counter-terrorism funding "significantly declined" between 2020 and 2025, the exact window in which antisemitic incidents multiplied more than twentyfold. ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess offered a revealing explanation for where resources went instead:
"Every rock we lifted up, we found espionage or foreign interference that need to be inquired and investigated. And so resources were moved over there."
Burgess insisted that "at no time do I believe we had any serious inquiries that was left uninquired or investigated." But the commission also noted that there was no evidence intelligence or law enforcement agencies had any prior information about a potential attack at Bondi. Burgess was not asked direct questions about whether either gunman had appeared on ASIO's radar, a gap the commission has yet to close.
ASIO had raised the national terrorism threat level from "possible" to "probable" in August 2024, four months before the massacre. The level remained at "probable" at the time of the commission hearings. Burgess acknowledged the difficulty of tracking individuals who do not publicly express extremist ideology, a description that may apply to at least one of the Akrams, given that Naveed was investigated and cleared years earlier.
The pattern of intelligence agencies identifying a rising threat but failing to prevent a specific attack echoes cases elsewhere. ISIS-inspired violence has prompted federal investigations across the globe, and in each case the post-attack review reveals warning signs that were visible, but not acted upon, before the first shot was fired.
The massacre did not quiet antisemitic hostility. It amplified it. Antisemitic online mentions in Australia surged 420 percent on the day of the attack and 600 percent by the following day, rising from roughly 3,000 posts to over 21,500. The spike extended beyond screens to include verbal attacks against Jewish students and property damage.
Israel's Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli called the trend what it was: "Online incitement is part of a dangerous web of hatred that increases the threat to the Jewish community. This is a time for real and determined action."
Nutt, the AFP assistant commissioner, offered a more measured but no less telling admission about the limits of prevention:
"We can't be everywhere all at once. We're not all seeing and all-knowing and we don't aspire to be."
That candor is welcome. But it sits uneasily next to the fact that counter-terrorism budgets were being cut, threat assessments were not being conducted for Jewish events, and a man previously investigated for ISIS ties was free to travel abroad for military training and return home to carry out a massacre.
Public access to the Royal Commission hearings has been restricted for three weeks, owing to the pending criminal case and classified national security information. That secrecy may be legally necessary, but it means the Australian public is still missing basic answers. The commission has not disclosed what specific intelligence, if any, agencies held on either Akram. It has not explained how Naveed Akram was cleared in 2019 or what criteria were used. And it has not addressed why Israeli warnings about Iranian-linked terror infrastructure did not translate into heightened protection for the very community those warnings identified as a target.
The commission's work is ongoing, and Commissioner Bell's interim findings on ASIO funding represent only the first layer of accountability. Whether the full inquiry produces structural reform, or merely a shelf of reports, will depend on whether Australian leaders treat the Bondi massacre as a policy failure demanding correction rather than a tragedy to be mourned and forgotten.
Fifteen people went to celebrate Hanukkah by the sea. They deserved a threat assessment, not a eulogy. When governments see the temperature rising and still leave the stove unattended, the people who get burned have every right to ask why.