Sydney Jewish Chanukah by the Sea celebration attacked; multiple people killed, injured; shooters yet to be identified

The FBI is assisting Australian authorities with their investigation into Sunday’s Bondi Beach terror attack as US leaders join the global condemnation of the Hanukkah massacre.

FBI director Kash Patel said he had spoken with the agency’s Australian counterparts and the bureau was “providing the requested assistance”.

New York City-mayor elect Zohran Mamdani said murdered rabbi Eli Schlanger, who was among 12 people confirmed dead so far, had deep ties to the Brooklyn Crown Heights, a neighbourhood in the New York borough of Brooklyn.

“The attack at a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney today was a vile act of antisemitic terror,” Mamdani said. “Another Jewish community plunged into mourning and loss, a holiday of light so painfully reduced to a day of darkness.

“This attack is merely the latest, most horrifying iteration in a growing pattern of violence targeted at Jewish people across the world. Too many no longer feel safe to be themselves, to express their faith publicly, to worship in their synagogues without armed security stationed outside. What happened at Bondi is what many Jewish people fear will happen in their communities too.”

Speaker of the US House of Representatives Mike Johnson said the Bondi attack was “another wake-up call” about the dangers posed by antisemitism.

“Jewish people must be free to practice their faith openly and without fear. Antisemitism must be confronted and defeated wherever it appears,” he said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US strongly condemned the attack and was praying for the victims, the Jewish community and the Australian people.

“Antisemitism has no place in this world,” he said.

US Republican Senator Ted Cruz said it was “an act of barbaric, antisemitic terrorism”.

“It was the outrageous, but all-too-predictable result of far too many leaders around the world tolerating and even fomenting hatred of Jews, instead of countering the evil of antisemitism with moral clarity and unrelenting condemnation.”