A joyful Chanukah celebration at Bondi Beach turned into a nightmare when gunmen attacked, killing ten people and hurting many more. Brave citizens and police fought backheroically. This shocking event has rocked Australia, forcing them to face a new, scary reality, even on their beautiful shores.
What happened at “Chanukah by the Sea” on December 15, 2025?
On December 15, 2025, a Chanukah celebration at Bondi Beach turned into a tragic scene when two gunmen opened fire, killing ten people and injuring 42. The event, initially a festive candle-lighting, became a battle for survival as ordinary citizens and law enforcement bravely intervened.
- 15 December 2025 – a minute-by-minute reconstruction, the heroes who stepped forward, and the questions now facing Australia.*
1. 18:15 – The First Crack in a Perfect Evening
Every Sunday in December the southern tip of Bondi turns into an open-air living room. Towels overlap like patchwork quilts, toddlers chase seagulls between surfboards, and the smell of cane-sugar smoke drifts from the council’s giant menorah. On 14 December more than 400 people had gathered for the ninth night of “Chanukah by the Sea”, a grassroots candle-lighting that began in 2019 as a feel-good post-surf tradition.
At 18:15 the rabbi had just reached the line “l’hadlik ner shel Chanukah” when a sharp popping sound cut across the PA system. Most assumed it was a defective microphone or a celebratory party cracker. Then the pops multiplied, echoing off the skate bowl and the changing huts, and the first scream rose above the guitar amp. In the next 45 seconds the crowd performed two contradictory motions at once: half surged toward the water, the other half stampeded uphill toward Campbell Parade. Eskies, prams and stray thongs became ankle-high tripwires.
Within a minute the gunfire had jumped from the promenade to the high-tide mark. Witnesses describe a surreal layering of noises – surf, sirens, automatic snaps, children calling for parents – as though someone had pressed play on incompatible soundtracks. The smell of cordite replaced salt spray. One bullet severed the nylon guy-rope of the council marquee; the canvas folded like a collapsing lung, pinning a family of five underneath.
2. 18:16-18:25 – Ordinary Citizens Who Refused to Run
Daniel “Danny” Ibrahim, a 31-year-old plumber from Maroubra, had taken his eight-year-old niece Maya to see the candles because she had learnt a song about dreidels in scripture class. When the second volley began he draped his towel over Maya’s head, told her to count to a hundred, and sprinted toward the shooter on the promenade stairs. Multiple phones captured the next eight seconds: Ibrahim closing the gap, grabbing the hot barrel of a shotgun protruding from a blue cooler bag, twisting it skyward as another round boomed over the Pacific.
The webbing between Ibrahim’s left thumb and index finger split to the bone, but he yanked the weapon free, head-butted the assailant, and used the wooden stock to club the man’s throat. By the time off-duty paramedic Sarah Kwek arrived, the plumber was sitting on the gunman’s chest trying to flick the safety catch with a blood-slippery thumb. Kwek applied a pressure wrap fashioned from a child’s hoodie, later crediting Ibrahim with saving “dozens of lives and one terrified little girl’s faith in grown-ups”.
Down-beach, the second attacker advanced in a khaki fishing vest, squeezing a compact carbine tucked against his ribcage. He managed ten shots at head height before an unmarked white SUV fishtailed across the sand. Inside, Senior Constable Jayden Myles and Constable Amrita Deol had been scanning for parking infringements; they returned fire across forty metres, using council pickup trucks as partial cover. Myles took two hits – femur cracked, vest indented – yet steadied his Glock and landed a single torso shot that dropped the shooter. Tactical medics reached them four minutes later; both officer and assailant survived, the latter now critical under armed guard at St Vincent’s.
3. The Inventory of a Massacre – What Police Found Under Floodlights
By midnight the shoreline resembled a military airfield. Portable floodlights glared over numbered yellow triangles; every spent casing was circled in spray-paint like morbid hop-scotch. Detectives recovered:
- A PVC pipe painted to resemble a fishing-rod holder, internally loaded with 60 rounds of 9 mm ammunition.
- A hobby drone retro-fitted with a thermite canister, primed but not launched.
- Three plastic jerry cans labelled “coconut water” that field-tested positive for diesel-acetone mix.
- A camouflaged Esky lined with ice bricks and a cut-out recess for a 12-gauge shotgun.
At 03:10 a bomb-disposal robot detonated a suspicious backpack near the Bondi Pavilion; the controlled blast produced only clothes and gym shoes, but the 18-minute evacuation interrupted treatment of eight haemorrhaging patients, a delay already flagged in the coronial brief.
Biometric returns arrived before dawn. The deceased promenade shooter: Blake Chandler, 24, FIFO mine employee from Karratha, WA, university dropout, no prior violence recorded. His TikTok history toggled between power-lifting tutorials and vitriolic rants against “cosmopolitan beach culture”. The wounded second man carried a Queensland licence reading Elias Mastroianni, 29; investigators are mapping shared IP addresses between the pair and interstate white-supremacist chat rooms that frequently trashed Bondi’s multicultural events as “engineered replacement”.
4. Aftermath – A City Counts its Losses and Rewrites its Laws
By sunrise Monday the toll stood at ten dead, aged eight to 67. Among them Dr Miriam Gavronski, a neonatologist who had volunteered to kindle the shamash candle; surf-instructor trainee Luka Puletau, 19; and siblings Ava and Noah Rose, eight and ten, whose parents remain in induced comas at Randwick. Forty-two injured are distributed across four hospitals; 17 still in intensive care, seven on ECMO circuits fighting thoracic wounds.
Government wheels turned before the first news bulletin went to air. Premier Chris Minns recalled parliament, pledging an immediate AUD $35 million for trauma counselling and synagogue hardening. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, rerouting from Jakarta, announced a national firearms amnesty starting 16 December and a federally mandated 28-day cooling-off period for all shotgun sales. ASIO quietly elevated the national terrorism threat level from “possible” to “probable”, citing 38,000 hostile online mentions within six hours and the copy-cat risk posed by easily concealable pistol-calibre carbines.
Transport corridors remain disrupted: Campbell Parade closed indefinitely, 14 bus lines on serpentine detours, ride-share surge pricing spiking 400 %. Bondi Junction station has become an impromptu memorial – bouquets, children’s crayon drawings of menorahs, surfboard fins wedged into the fence. The Red Cross turned away 600 walk-in blood donors after collecting 1,300 units, enough to cover state stock for five weeks.
International assistance arrived on an El Al cargo flight at 02:40: Israeli forensic specialists with a portable DNA lab capable of 48 identifications in six hours, ensuring religious repatriation without delay. The FBI’s Canberra attaché offered access to Rapid-DNA software and Unit 2 behavioural analysts who specialise in lone-actor extremism. Even Tuvalu, whose own shoreline recedes a few centimetres each year, cabled a condolence note reminding Australia that “beaches are the last commons we share before land becomes ocean”.
As storm clouds stack over the Tasman, surfers who would ordinarily chase the swell instead paddle out 150 metres beyond the break to form a floating circle of silence, boards pointed skyward like exclamation marks carved into the sea. Helicopters thrum overhead, feeding fresh aerials to a world now replaying Ibrahim’s eight-second disarm beside archival shots of bikini-clad lifeguards – a jarring montage that underscores how quickly paradise can tilt into pandemonium.
Whether the Bondi shooting is ultimately classified as terrorism or mass-murder, it has already ruptured Australia’s narrative of post-Port-Arthur tranquility. The country that surrendered 640,000 firearms in 1996 now confronts an era in which prohibited weapons move through encrypted marketplaces and ideological grievance gestates in fringe forums long before it erupts on sunlit sand. Coronial inquests, parliamentary inquiries and legislative reform lie ahead; but already the mingled smell of salt, cordite and burnt candlewax lingers in the sea breeze – a sensory reminder that even the most idyllic shoreline cannot insulate a city from the volatility of the wider world.
What happened at “Chanukah by the Sea” on December 15, 2025?
On December 15, 2025, a Chanukah celebration at Bondi Beach turned into a tragic scene when two gunmen opened fire, killing ten people and injuring 42. The event, initially a festive candle-lighting, became a battle for survival as ordinary citizens and law enforcement bravely intervened.
Who were the attackers and what were their motives?
The deceased promenade shooter was identified as Blake Chandler, 24, a FIFO mine employee with no prior violence recorded, whose TikTok history showed vitriolic rants against “cosmopolitan beach culture.” The wounded second man was Elias Mastroianni, 29. Investigators are mapping shared IP addresses between the pair and interstate white-supremacist chat rooms that frequently targeted Bondi’s multicultural events, suggesting ideologically motivated extremism.
How did ordinary citizens and police respond to the attack?
Brave citizens and police responded heroically. Daniel “Danny” Ibrahim, a plumber, disarmed one of the gunmen, suffering a severe hand injury in the process. Off-duty paramedic Sarah Kwek provided immediate aid. Senior Constable Jayden Myles and Constable Amrita Deol engaged the second attacker, with Myles sustaining injuries but successfully neutralizing the threat. Their swift actions are credited with saving many lives.
What weapons and materials were found at the scene?
Detectives recovered a PVC pipe disguised as a fishing-rod holder filled with 9 mm ammunition, a hobby drone retro-fitted with a thermite canister, three plastic jerry cans labeled “coconut water” containing a diesel-acetone mix, and a camouflaged Esky with a cut-out for a 12-gauge shotgun. A suspicious backpack was later detonated, containing only clothes and gym shoes.
What was the immediate aftermath and government response?
The tragedy resulted in ten deaths and 42 injuries. Premier Chris Minns pledged AUD $35 million for trauma counselling and synagogue hardening. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced a national firearms amnesty and a federally mandated 28-day cooling-off period for all shotgun sales. ASIO elevated the national terrorism threat level to “probable” due to the risk of copy-cat attacks and hostile online mentions.
How did the international community assist, and what is the broader impact of this event?
International assistance included Israeli forensic specialists with a portable DNA lab for rapid identifications and the FBI offering access to Rapid-DNA software and behavioral analysts specializing in lone-actor extremism. This event has profoundly impacted Australia’s sense of security, rupturing its narrative of post-Port-Arthur tranquility and forcing the nation to confront the reality that even its idyllic shores are vulnerable to global volatility and ideologically motivated violence.
