Australia to hold funerals for the 15 victims of an antisemitic mass shooting at Bondi Beach

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MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia prepared for the funerals on Wednesday for some of the 15 victims of an antisemitic mass shooting during a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, an attack that police said was inspired by the Islamic State group.

The victims were between 10 and 87 years old. Twenty-two people who were injured in the attack remained in Sydney hospitals Wednesday, six of them in a critical condition.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Tuesday that the IS link assessment was based on evidence obtained, including “the presence of Islamic State flags in the vehicle that has been seized.”

Among the injured in the hospital is Ahmed al Ahmed, hailed as a hero after he was captured on video tackling and disarming one of the assailants, before pointing the man’s weapon at him and then setting it on the ground. Three other people who tried to stop the gunmen were shot and killed.

The gunshots rang out as members of Australia's Jewish community attended festivities at Australia’s most famous beach Sunday.

They included Boris and Sofia Gurman, identified on Wednesday as a married couple who were the first killed when they tried to stop one of the shooters as he climbed from his car.

The suspects were a father and son, aged 50 and 24, authorities said. The father, whom state officials named as Sajid Akram, was shot and killed. His son, who hasn't been formally named by the authorities, was being treated at a hospital.

The son emerged from a coma on Tuesday, said Mal Lanyon, police commissioner for New South Wales state, where Sydney is located. Lanyon told 702 ABC Radio Sydney that investigators expected to speak to and charge him on Wednesday.

Albanese and the leaders of some of Australia's states have pledged to tighten the country's already strict gun laws in what would be the most sweeping reforms since a shooter killed 35 people in Port Arthur, Tasmania, in 1996. Mass shootings in Australia have since been rare.

Three days after the attack, public anger has grown. Questions are being raised how the suspects were able to carry out such an attack and whether Australian Jews are being sufficiently protected from rising antisemitism.

Albanese announced plans to further restrict access to guns, in part because it emerged the older suspect had amassed six weapons legally.

Indian police on Tuesday said the older suspect was originally from the southern city of Hyderabad and held an Indian passport. They said he married a woman of European origin and migrated to Australia in 1998 in search of employment opportunities, maintaining little contact with his family in India.

“The family members have expressed no knowledge of his radical mindset or activities, nor of the circumstances that led to his radicalization,” Telangana State Police Chief, B. Shivadhar Reddy said.

Last month, the suspects traveled to the Philippines, Lanyon told reporters Tuesday. An investigation will look into why and where they traveled, he said and also confirmed that a vehicle removed from the scene, registered to the younger suspect, contained improvised explosive devices.

“I also confirm that it contained two homemade ISIS flags,” Lanyon said, referring to the militant group by one of its acronyms.

The Philippines Bureau of Immigration confirmed Tuesday that Sajid Akram traveled to the country from Nov. 1 to Nov. 28 along with Naveed Akram, 24, giving the city of Davao as their final destination. Australian authorities have not confirmed this nor the younger suspect's name.

Groups of Muslim separatist militants, including Abu Sayyaf in the southern Philippines, once expressed support for IS and have hosted small numbers of foreign militants from Asia, the Middle East and Europe in the past.

Decades of military offensives, however, have considerably weakened Abu Sayyaf and other such armed groups, and Philippine military and police officials say there has been no recent indication of any foreign militants in the country’s south.

Many Australians have celebrated stories of the heroism of those who tried to stop the horror.

Albanese visited al Ahmed in a hospital on Tuesday, where he said the 44-year-old Syrian-born Muslim shop owner had further surgery scheduled for shotgun wounds to his left shoulder and upper body.

“It was a great honor to met Ahmed al Ahmed. He is a true Australian hero,” Albanese told reporters after a 30-minute meeting with him and his parents.

“We are a brave country. Ahmed al Ahmed represents the best of our country. We will not allow this country to be divided. That is what the terrorists seek. We will unite. We will embrace each other, and we’ll get through this,” Albanese added.

The famous blue-shirted lifeguards of Bondi Beach also attracted praise as more stories of their actions during the shooting emerged.

One duty lifeguard, identified by the organization’s Instagram account as Rory Davey, performed an ocean rescue during the shooting after people fled, fully clothed, into the sea.

Another lifeguard, Jackson Doolan, posted to his social media a photo taken as he sprinted, barefoot and clutching a first aid kit, from Tamarama beach a mile away toward Bondi as the massacre continued.

“These guys are community members and it’s not about the surf,” Anthony Caroll, one of the stars of a popular reality television show called “Bondi Rescue,” told Sky News on Tuesday. “They heard the gunshots and they left the beach and came right up the back here into the scene of the crime, into harm’s way.”

Israeli Ambassador to Australia Amir Maimon visited the scene of the carnage on Tuesday and was welcomed by Jewish leaders.

“I’m not sure that my vocabulary is rich enough to express how I feel. My heart is torn apart because the Jewish community, the Australians of Jewish faith, the Jewish community is also my community,” Maimon said.

Thousands have visited Bondi from all walks of life to pay their respects and lay flowers at an impromptu memorial site. Among them was former Prime Minister John Howard, who was responsible for the 1996 overhaul of gun laws and an associated buyback of newly outlawed weapons.

A record number of Australians signed up to donate blood in the aftermath of the attack, including almost 1,300 people signed up to donate for the first time. Donation appointments were booked until Dec. 31 at Lifeblood’s Bondi location, according to the organization’s website.

Australian news outlets reported queues of up to four hours at some Sydney donation sites.

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Graham-McLay reported from Wellington, New Zealand. Associated Press writers Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, and Rajesh Roy in New Delhi, India, contributed to this report.