The deadly Hanukkah shootings occurred amid a surge in anti-Semitic incidents in Australia. Were the police prepared?

More than 1,000 people gathered Bondi Beach on a hot day to celebrate the first night of Hanukkah in Australia. In stark contrast to the joyful energy of the beach, a terrorist plot was underway, which would have been planned in advance by a father and son who opened fire with rifles on the crowd, with an improvised explosive device ready in their car.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Monday that the younger suspect had been investigated by the country’s main intelligence agency in 2019 – apparently for his links to a suspected Islamic State cell in Sydney – but was considered to pose no security threat.

“This is a targeted attack on Australian Jews,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called Sunday’s shooting a “targeted attack on Australian Jews.” New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said the project was “designed to target Sydney’s Jewish community”.

Police should have been on high alert, given it was a Hanukkah celebration and anti-Semitic threats and attacks skyrocketed in Australia following Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, according to data from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.

However, the two attackers could have fired shots towards the beach for more than five minutes, according to eyewitness accounts. Videos show the gunmen taking their time aiming, shooting and then ducking from a bridge near the beach. One video shows a good Samaritan jumping on the back of one of the shooters and pushing his gun away. Local media reported that the man who intervened, identified as 43 years old Ahmed al-Ahmedsuffered two gunshot wounds.

“The first initial reaction was not even from the police, but from civilians, which raised a lot of questions about the role of the police,” said Oded Ailam, who worked in Israeli intelligence for two decades and viewed videos of the attack for CBS News.

Asked about the police response time at a press conference on Monday local time, New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said: “I respect a person who has an opinion, but I have been very clear: our police responded quickly.

Ailam told CBS News: “All indications are that this is a long-planned attack. The big question now is whether Iran and Hezbollah will be involved.”

Australia determined earlier this year that a series of arsons targeting a synagogue and a kosher food supplier had been directed by Iran, and decided to sever diplomatic relations following the incidents.

“As a matter of principle, Iran condemns the violent attack on civilians in Sydney, Australia,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said on social media on Sunday. “Terrorist violence and massacres must be condemned, wherever committed, as illegal and criminal.”

Asked by reporters whether Sunday’s shooting was an intelligence failure, New South Wales officials brushed aside the questions and said their priority was keeping the community safe.

The alleged attackers were a father-son duo. U.S. officials told CBS News on Sunday that they were from Pakistan, but Australian authorities later said the son was born in Australia and did not confirm which country the father emigrated to Australia from.

They had six firearms – purchased legally – and had assembled an improvised explosive device to target the Jewish gathering, according to authorities.

While shocking, the attack is not entirely surprising to those who follow anti-Semitic attacks.

Rise in anti-Semitism in Australia

Australia has been plagued by reports of anti-Semitic attacks and incidents in the two years since October 7, 2023, according to new figures from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.

In one particularly notable incident last year, masked attackers carried out a arson attack on Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne. Seven months later, an arsonist set fire to the doors from another Melbourne synagogue, the East Melbourne Inner City Hebrew Congregation, forcing the congregation to flee.

Another arson attack took place last year at kosher food supplier Lewis Continental Kitchen in Sydney.

The attacks on the Adass Israel synagogue and food business were determined by the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) to be linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. In August, Prime Minister Albanese expelled Iran’s ambassador, Ahmad Sadeghi, and three other Iranian diplomats, citing the intelligence assessment concluding that Iran had directed anti-Semitic arson attacks on Australian soil.

The ECAJ found that anti-Semitic incidents in Australia remain at historically high levels – almost five times the average annual number before October 7, 2023, representing the largest spike of any J7 country between 2021 and 2024. J7 refers to the seven countries with the largest Jewish communities outside of Israel which form the J7 working group against anti-Semitism: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Argentina and Australia.

The J7 task force met in Sydney less than a week before Sunday’s attack to discuss the growing threat to the security of Australia’s Jewish community.

“This attack is not only the latest in a worrying series of anti-Semitic incidents in Australia but around the world, including in the United States,” said Oren Segal, senior vice president of counter-extremism and intelligence at the Anti-Defamation League. “And these incidents are becoming more and more violent.”

This article has been updated to note that Australian authorities said the youngest suspect was born in Australia. Police in the Indian state of Telangana confirmed on December 16 that the oldest suspect, Sajid Akram, was an Indian national from the state capital, Hyderabad.