Sajid Akram travelled to Philippines as ‘Indian national’, Manila authorities say
The father and son accused of being behind the deadly Bondi beach mass shooting spent nearly the entire month of November in the Philippines, that country’s immigration department has confirmed, with Sajid Akram entering the country as an “Indian national”.
Akram and his son Naveed, who allegedly killed 15 people and wounded dozens of others at a Hanukah celebration on Sydney’s Bondi beach, arrived on 1 November with the southern province of Davao listed as their final destination, Agence France-Press reports.
Immigration spokesperson Dana Sandoval told AFP:
Sajid Akram, 50, Indian national, and Naveed Akram, 24, Australian national, arrived in the Philippines together last November 1, 2025 from Sydney, Australia.
Sandoval said the men departed on 28 November.
Key events
Guardian contributor Nadine Cohen was leaving a yoga class in Bondi, just opposite the pavilion, when the shooting started on Sunday. She has written for us about her experience here:
Sajid Akram travelled to Philippines as ‘Indian national’, Manila authorities say
The father and son accused of being behind the deadly Bondi beach mass shooting spent nearly the entire month of November in the Philippines, that country’s immigration department has confirmed, with Sajid Akram entering the country as an “Indian national”.
Akram and his son Naveed, who allegedly killed 15 people and wounded dozens of others at a Hanukah celebration on Sydney’s Bondi beach, arrived on 1 November with the southern province of Davao listed as their final destination, Agence France-Press reports.
Immigration spokesperson Dana Sandoval told AFP:
Sajid Akram, 50, Indian national, and Naveed Akram, 24, Australian national, arrived in the Philippines together last November 1, 2025 from Sydney, Australia.
Sandoval said the men departed on 28 November.
Here’s video of Syrian-born Ahmed al-Ahmed, 43, who risked his life to disarm one of the alleged Bondi shooters and save multiple lives, thanking supporters as he receives treatment in hospital.
Mayors from around NSW to visit Bondi memorial
The mayor of Waverley, Will Nemesh, has been speaking to media at Bondi Pavilion.
On Thursday at midday, mayors from around the state will lay floral tributes at the pavilion, Nemesh said.
An extraordinary meeting of the council has been called for this evening, where Nemesh says:
[W]e will outline our council’s response in how we’re going to support our community and specifically our Jewish community.
What the mayoral minute will entail is support in the amount of $100,000 for our community that will be made immediately available for applications to be made to our general manager and in consultation with myself and the general manager to be dispersed among organisations supporting individuals and our community on the frontline.
We will also be providing a dedicated space in one of our facilities for the members of our community to come together, to talk, to decompress. It will be a safe space.
Updates about the council’s planned New Year’s Eve celebrations will be made soon, Nemesh said.
NSW Council for Civil Liberties welcomes calls to curb ‘alarming number’ of firearms
The NSW Council for Civil Liberties (NSWCCL) has welcomed national cabinet’s commitment to developing stricter gun control laws.
In a statement this afternoon, the NSWCCL said that the 1,133,690 registered firearms in New South Wales, according to the firearms registry report, is “an alarming number”.
The statement said:
NSWCCL has never been supportive of a right to bear arms. The NSWCCL urges the government to consider effective means of controlling firearms, and eliminating the most dangerous firearms to reduce the risk of gun crime in the community. There must also be effective measures to counter the influence of the firearms industry. It was only a short time ago that NSW rejected moves to legislate a right to hunt.
The NSWCCL president, Timothy Roberts, said:
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and the security of person and this must be the prevailing consideration. This means taking effective action to reduce gun crime, inappropriate gun use and the risk of guns being stolen and used illegally.
A person should not be able to own as many guns as they wish and the pattern of an ever increasing number of guns in our community since 1996 must end. The more guns in the community, the less secure we are, and any gun reform needs to be weighed against that cost.
Caitlin Cassidy
‘How did they get away with having so many big guns?’
Fear is not new for Kobi Farkash. The Israeli citizen lived through the 7 October attacks in 2023, and subsequent conflict. But he didn’t expect to see terror arrive at Bondi beach.
Farkash has been in Sydney for around two weeks. He says Hanukah is something “very joyful” for families and was excited to see celebrations occurring when he arrived at Bondi beach on Sunday afternoon:
I was enjoying the beach, I didn’t know about the festival and I just heard the Jewish music and went inside. I was enjoying eating the doughnuts, walking around, for about 10, 15 minutes, and then I heard shooting, gunfire.
I thought it was fireworks, then I came closer and saw someone on the ground with blood. In that moment I realised it was a terrorist attack and ran away. I just kept running, running on the beach until I felt more safe.
Farkash says he thought Sydney was one of the safest places you could go.
When tourists come to Israel they see a lot of police, a lot of soldiers and people don’t feel safe. Here, you don’t see much security, much police, so it feels like the safest place to travel.
He questioned how long it took the police to arrive, and how long the gunmen were able to shoot.
I was thinking, where is the police? The gunmen kept going one by one … in Israel, when something like that happens, in two or three minutes you can see 20, 30 ambulances coming with the police, especially in a big city … and how did they get away with having so many big guns?
I asked someone, ‘why are you gathering in the open air with not much police?’, and he told me, ‘no one expects something like this would be in Bondi,’ it’s the most touristic, multicultural area, nobody thought these attacks would happen.
He also singled out Ahmed al-Ahmad, the Syrian-born man who attacked one of the shooters.
It shows Australians, they can see all the people, all the religions, they understand it’s against Australian people and against Sydney. Everyone wants to protect the life of people here.
Caitlin Cassidy
David and Janine, a Jewish couple, arrived at the Bondi Pavilion at about 6.30am.
The couple’s granddaughter, 12, was at Bondi Pavilion during the terror attack, celebrating a friend’s Bat Mitzvah. They were all safe, but spent the celebration in lockdown.
Janine says she doesn’t think they’ve processed “the enormity” of what’s happened:
Some kids didn’t know what to do, so they ran. I’m still trying to come to terms with all that’s happened … every day, you hear more stories, and we’re in shock and sadness … the thing that breaks my heart is my granddaughter always says my happy place is swimming at the sea at Bondi, and she was the one that was here.
Janine works in an aged care facility where there are many Holocaust survivors, who she says are going through extreme trauma:
Every day when they read the news, when there’s antisemitic attacks, car bombs, they just go back and remember Germany pre-Holocaust, and they’re fearful.
There’s not only Jewish people here [at the pavilion], there’s people from everywhere, Australians that feel as sad as we do.
David says all the Jewish community can do now is “help each other, give support, and stand together”, with the help of fellow Australians:
It doesn’t matter your religion, it’s just humanity. There’s radicals on every side and we just have to be strong in our community and carry on. Reclaim Bondi, this belongs to everybody here and we shouldn’t let people discourage us from coming here.
Bipartisan support in NSW for parliament recall for gun reform
Penry Buckley
The NSW premier, Chris Minns, indicated earlier that state parliament could be recalled before Christmas to strengthen gun laws agreed in principle at national cabinet.
He said he had not a “detailed discussion” with the leader of the opposition, Kellie Sloane, but thanked her for her bipartisan support after the attack:
We don’t have a draft bill, what I have been able to say is that she’s been incredible working with us over the last 24-48 hours.
Earlier, Sloane told 2GB she supported parliament’s early recall:
Look, if legislative change is required, then NSW opposition support recalling NSW parliament as quickly as possible.
We need a bipartisan approach, but we also need a bipartisan approach to hate speech, and we must draw a line in the sand, and this must be the wake-up call that this country needed to take tougher action to be firm on antisemitism.
The NSW Nationals leader, Gurmesh Singh, told the ABC this morning his party was ready for parliament to be recalled, but had yet to see substantive policy proposals.
Greens upper house member Sue Higginson has said the party supported changes to gun control laws outlined by the premier and prime minister, and has also called for a fresh national buyback scheme of “high-powered and excess weapons”, which the premier has yet to announce a position on.
Minns said that one aspect of reform that is “absolutely essential” was the use of criminal intelligence in determining whether someone should keep a gun licence.
Caitlin Cassidy
Tributes to victims read out at memorial
Rabbi Yossi Freedman, a former senior rabbi at Maroubra synagogue and local to Sydney’s eastern suburbs, arrived at Bondi Pavilion early on Tuesday morning and has been there for most of the day.
Every few hours, he reads the names of the identified victims to the crowd, and leads them in rounds of prayer and song.
One victim he singled out was Alex Kleytman, 87, who had survived the Holocaust before being fatally shot on Sunday evening. Freedman said he was succeeded by his grandchildren, who were also at the Hanukah event:
Alex was just here at a family event with his wife, his family, and he was murdered. He survived the horrors of the Holocaust just to be murdered here, at Bondi beach, what is supposed to be a safe space.
He also spoke of Tibor Weitzen, a relative of Kleytman’s wife, whose granddaughter was sitting next to him at the event.
He was brutally murdered in front of her. He was 78 years old, his granddaughter, pregnant, about to give birth any day. She’s now going through this trauma. Tibor was known to be the most generous, loving, kind, compassionate, selfless person. In fact, he was just swimming with his great granddaughter and his granddaughter on Sunday morning. They had no idea this would be the last time that they would be together.
Federal government overrules exclusion clauses for Bondi attack insurance claims
The federal government has exercised powers that allow them to overrule insurance companies that may attempt to reject claims related to Sunday’s shooting on the basis that their policies don’t cover for terrorism.
A statement this afternoon from assistant treasurer Daniel Mulino said the government had “declared Sunday’s Bondi attack a terrorist incident for the purposes of the Terrorism and Cyclone Insurance Act 2003, based on advice from relevant agencies and following consultation with the Minister for Home Affairs.”
The statement continued:
This will ensure businesses can lodge insurance claims related to the Bondi terrorist attack.
No business affected by this despicable act should have a legitimate claim denied due to terrorism exclusions in their insurance policies.
This declaration overrules any terrorism exclusion clauses in affected businesses’ insurance policies and means providers can’t refuse claims on the grounds that losses arise from an act of terrorism.
Relevant claims include commercial property damage, business continuity losses, and public liability.
