The heroes of the terror attack at Bondi Beach

BONDI, AUSTRALIA — Jessica Chapnik Kahn remembers her daughter petting a goat just minutes after they arrived at Bondi’s bustling Chanukah by the Sea event, Sunday, December 14. 

The five-year-old turned to her and said: “I want to leave now.”

And then Jessica heard the first gunshot. 

She had been walking hand in hand with her daughter, Shemi, down to Australia’s most iconic beach on the first night of Chanukah, talking about growing up.

“She was saying [that] she was loving growing up, loving being five, [saying] she felt so much older, and that being older meant she was stronger and could do different things.” 

It was the kind of conversation that would have lingered in memory on any ordinary Sunday. Looking back now, Jessica says: “If I’d lost her, this chat would be the worst thing that has ever happened to me.” 

They had passed through security — routine at Jewish events in Sydney’s eastern suburbs — bought jam-filled sufganiyots and stopped briefly at the petting zoo. Not seeing much else for her daughter to do, Jessica moved them to the center of the park. 

“We were standing hand in hand, looking around, thinking ‘where will we go to next?’

“And then the first shot happened. 

“In that moment…” she pauses, spreading her arms wide.  

“You can see so much in a microsecond.” 

She heard the shot. Looked around. Saw people were still smiling. 

“It was such a party vibe. Party Central,” she recalls.

“They think it’s fireworks. It’s not.” 

Jessica didn’t grab her daughter. She thought if she reached for Shemi, she would expose her. She pushed her forward instead, thinking she would run toward the ocean. 

Pointing now toward the Pacific – past a still-abandoned Volkswagen Golf with a bullet hole through its rear windscreen – she shakes her head. “The distance became so huge I thought we would be dead before we made it.” 

She followed a crowd rushing into a small picnic area behind a low concrete wall. 

“We dove into it; we all lay on top of our children. 

“I had lots of other children under my legs, in my skirt. It was just a tangle of bodies. I could hear parents desperately telling their children to ‘get down, stay down’.” 

There may have been up to 100 people pressed into that space, inches from cover, pushing themselves into concrete. 

“I remember thinking, ‘this is a really long time’. There were over 100 gunshots. 

“It was so long. There was a sense that if you moved a muscle or breathed wrong, that might cost you your life. 

“I prayed. I could feel my breath. I could feel I was gasping for air with my prayers.” 

Her phone rang incessantly. Her husband was calling. She didn’t dare move. 

“In my mind there were so many gunshots I was imagining a group of men running around the space, a rampage, like the Nova Festival. 

“At one point I felt this spray [over me], blood or flesh. I realized I could die.”

She stopped praying. Let go of survival. Chose how she wanted to die.

“Around this time a calm came over me. I was starting to access my heart-space.” Then a terrifying thought: “It’s been 15 minutes, and my daughter hasn’t moved. 

“I was on top of her with my full body weight, and I just forgot. 

“I said ‘Shemi, are you breathing bubba?’” 

Her daughter sobbed — barely audible. “It was the tiniest, tiny cry. But it was her. 

“I said ‘Go into your heart where all the love is and stay there.’ And I really felt her respond, I felt her melt into me. 

“I closed my eyes and was thinking things like ‘Where will they shoot me? What body part? What will it be like when she crawls out from beneath me and finds the body?’ 

“Then before I knew it” – she pauses – “after an eternity. Everyone started getting up. 

“Exactly where Shemi and I were… there’s a bullet mark in the concrete.” 

The First Victims

As Jessica and her daughter lay pressed into the ground, other ordinary Australians were making split-second decisions of their own. 

Moments before the shooting began, locals Boris and Sofia Gurman were walking along Campbell Parade when a man emerged from a parked car carrying a long gun. 

This was Sajid Akram, 50, an Indian national who migrated to Australia in 1998 and was a licensed firearms holder with six registered guns. 

Dashcam footage shows Boris, a 69-year-old retired mechanic, tackling the gunman and seizing his weapon. His wife Sofia, 61, rushed to his side. Ukrainian-Jews, the Gurmans had first moved to Australia in the early 1990s, after the fall of the USSR. 

Seconds later, both were dead – the first victims of the terror attack.

Their family later said: “We feel an overwhelming sense of pride in their bravery and selflessness. This encapsulates who Boris and Sofia were, people who instinctively tried to help others.” 

At their funeral days later, Rabbi Yehoram Ulman described an “unimaginable situation in which we say goodbye to both at the same time.” 

Outside, wrapped in an Israeli flag, mourner Sivan Karenheh spoke through tears. 

“They immigrated from Ukraine to live the Australian dream, and my heart sinks knowing they came here feeling safe yet died defending our community. They lived for us to walk free as Jews, and they died defending that.” 

The Have-a-Go Hero

A short distance away from these initial murders, tobacconist Ahmed Al Ahmed had come to Bondi Beach to meet a friend for coffee when the gunfire erupted. 

Within seconds, video later shared online shows the 43-year-old moving toward the sound of shots, crouching behind a car, then rushing Sajid Akram from behind. 

After wrestling the weapon from his hands, Syrian-born Ahmed forced Akram back.

Moments later, he was shot multiple times by the attacker’s son Naveed, 24, an Australian-born citizen who had come to the attention of the nation’s domestic intelligence agency in 2019 for his close ties to a Sydney-based Islamic State cell.

Friends and neighbors in Sutherland, a Sydney suburb an hour south of Bondi, described Ahmed as a quiet, hardworking shop owner, a father of two who rarely sought attention.

Those who know Ahmed say his instinct to act did not come from bravado or ideology, but from habit — the quiet, reflexive sense of responsibility that comes from running a small business in a tightly knit community.

His tobacco shop, now shuttered, sits among cafés, post offices and takeaway restaurants, where owners greet one another daily, swap small courtesies, and watch over each other’s customers.

In the days after the attack, flowers, handwritten notes and prayers accumulated at the shopfront, a wordless acknowledgment from locals trying to reconcile the ordinariness of the man they knew with the enormity of what he had done.

Up the street, Mohammed Islam, who runs Ahmed’s favourite curry restaurant, says the attack forced many in the area to reflect on the values that bind their community together.

“As a Muslim we must respect everyone. My religion is mine; his religion is his,” he says. “I appreciate him [Ahmed] and I pray for him, and I hope he comes out from this situation okay.”

For Islam, Ahmed’s actions were not about faith or difference, but about proximity and humanity — seeing people in danger and responding without calculation. “He went in to help human beings,” he says. “That’s what matters.”

“I recognized him straight away,” said Ali Kalache, who runs the pharmacy immediately next door to Ahmed’s shop.

“It’s amazing, I couldn’t believe it. The guy was advancing towards the crowd, there was no one in his path, and he [Ahmed] just got up and did what he did. 

“After he disarmed him [the shooter], he put the gun down and left it at that. He didn’t go after him, he didn’t attack him, he didn’t violate him. 

“He’s a phenomenal guy. Heroes come in all shapes and forms.”  

When Australia’s Prime Minister visited Ahmed in hospital a few days later, he praised his “extraordinary bravery” and thanked him on behalf of the nation.

Murdered in Cold Blood

Seconds later, another civilian stepped forward. Reuven Morrison, a 61-year-old Russian-born Jewish man who had migrated to Australia as a teenager in the 1970s, was captured on video throwing a brick at the retreating gunman. 

He was fatally shot. 

In a statement, his daughter said: “My father was murdered. In cold blood. Shot. For being Jewish. He did not cower. He did not lay low. He sprang to action. To fight.” 

Exactly a year earlier, after a fire-bombing on a synagogue in Sydney, Morrison had warned of a rising tide of anti-Jewish hatred: “We came here with the view that Australia is the safest country in the world and the Jews would not be faced with such antisemitism in the future, where we can bring up our kids in a safe environment.” 

The Police Response

Three uniformed NSW Police officers were already on duty at the Chanukah by the Sea event when the gunfire erupted. With people fleeing in panic and little clarity about how many attackers were involved, the officers moved forward and engaged the gunmen. 

Probationary Constable Jack Hibbert, 22 – on the force just four months – was shot twice. His colleague, Constable Scott Dyson, who had been serving in Bondi for 18 months, was also shot while confronting the attackers. 

“They weren’t shot in the back as they were running away; they were shot in the front,” New South Wales (NSW) Premier Chris Minns said days later.  

“If there’s any suggestion that NSW Police did not live up to their responsibilities to this state, it should be rejected because it’s not consistent with the facts.” 

Constable Hibbert remains in critical condition. His family later said that although he “miraculously survived,” his injuries had resulted in the loss of vision in one eye.  

“He moved toward people in need, not away from danger, and continued helping others while seriously injured,” they said. 

As the firefight continued, plain-clothes Detective Cesar Barraza arrived at the scene from the direction of Bondi police station and took up a position behind the attackers. 

Video footage later showed him firing toward the gunmen during the final moments of the confrontation, killing Sajid Akram.

NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon later said investigators were still examining ballistics evidence but praised the officer’s actions, saying the bravery shown by police that day was “incredible.” 

By the time the attackers were neutralized, 15 people were dead or dying. Dozens more were critically injured.

Naveed Akram was critically injured but survived. After emerging from a coma, on December 17, he was charged with 59 offences, including 15 counts of murder, and committing a terrorist act.

‘Run Home Now’

With the shooting over, people finally began to rise from the ground. Jessica heard parents warning their children not to look. 

“I said to Shemi, ‘Keep your eyes closed, put your head here. Mom has got you’.” 

She lifted her daughter and walked forward. “I saw the man next to me just had holes all over his body… I walked away like a zombie.” 

A police officer told her: “Run home now.” 

But home was toward the gunfire. 

Feeling exposed, Jessica and her daughter sought shelter at the North Bondi Surf Life Saving Club, where people were yelling that another gunman might still be loose. 

When she finally reached her husband, he told her he had been searching for them “amongst the dead bodies.” 

“It was a very bittersweet reunion,” she says. “I didn’t feel safe. I didn’t feel like, ‘Whoa, what a relief.’ I had no idea who was out here.” 

What stays with her most is not only the terror — but the courage. 

“It’s unbelievable how people, almost without hesitation, put their lives on the line,” she says. “The fact that people did that is beyond me. 

“I’m very grateful for the love that I’m feeling from this community.”