A Jewish security group warned local police of heightened risk of a terrorist attack amid a “high level of antisemitic vilification” in the days leading up to December’s terrorist attack at a Hanukkah event in Bondi Beach, according to a report from a high-level inquiry into the shooting.
The interim report released on Thursday by the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion marks the first comprehensive review of the attack, the deadliest mass shooting in Australia in three decades, which left 15 people dead and 40 wounded.
The report sets the stage for public hearings beginning next week that will scrutinize the federal government’s intelligence arrangements, police preparedness and response as well as the rise in antisemitism in broader Australian society. A final report is expected to be delivered in December.
Thursday’s report stopped short of pointing to specific shortcomings in public agencies’ counterterrorism or intelligence operations that may have contributed to the attack, or diagnosing the rise in antisemitism in Australia that many in the Jewish community had warned of since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023. Those questions may be aired in the coming public hearings.
The report did say that counterterrorism capability “could be improved” at both a national and state level and recommended that police support and protection of Jewish festivals and events be extended.
Among the 14 recommendations were that authorities move quickly to tighten firearms regulations and carry out gun buyback schemes.
“Five months on from the attack, Australia’s Jewish community is still grieving, still hurting, still craving answers,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Thursday in response to the report’s release, noting that there were “no urgent changes” asked of his government.
The rise in antisemitism, he said, was a “global phenomenon” that governments around the world were responding to.
The 154-page report, parts of which were kept confidential for national security or operational concerns, offered a detailed account of communications between the Community Security Group, a Jewish organization that offers protection at schools, synagogues and events, and the New South Wales police, the local law enforcement agency.
Six days before the planned Hanukkah event on Bondi Beach, the security group informed police of its assessment that a terrorist attack against the Jewish community was “likely,” according to the report. The group asked for police assistance to safeguard 14 planned Hanukkah events across Sydney, including the Bondi event, saying it was recording “unprecedented volumes of antisemitic incidents,” the report said.
The New South Wales police told the commission that event organizers were responsible for providing security, and that any law enforcement assistance was supplementary. Event organizers have the option of paying for police presence but that did not appear to have been requested, according to the report.
The police told the security group it could not station officers at the event but that mobile patrols would “check in and monitor,” according to the report.
Three days before the event, two of the area’s senior officers were directed to provide a high-visibility police presence. “No need to stay the entire duration, but your presence will ensure the community feel safe,” they were instructed in an email, according to the report.
Ultimately, three officers and a supervisor attended the event “at various times,” the report stated.
About two hours into the event, a beachside celebration for families that a thousand people were expected to attend, two gunmen unleashed round upon round of gunfire on the mostly Jewish gathering. Sajid Akram was shot and killed on the scene by a police detective. His son, Naveed Akram, is in custody and is facing charges including murder and terrorism.
Two officers who were patrolling the event were shot and injured but survived.
After the release of the report, Mal Lanyon, commissioner of the New South Wales police, said police had worked with the community security group in the lead-up to the event and continued to do so, without specifically addressing the level of preparation.
“There were police present on that occasion, there had been a risk assessment and there were certainly roving police throughout the area on the evening,” he said.
The commission also noted in the report that the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, the country’s top domestic intelligence agency, had raised its terrorism threat level to “probable” in August 2024. It will be necessary to investigate through the hearings how state and federal authorities understood and acted on that assessment, and the “adequacy” of the intelligence agency’s actions in response to rising antisemitic attacks, the report said.
Alex Ryvchin, co-chief of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said on Thursday that survivors and family members wanted more information about how police resources were deployed and why.
“On the face of it, it seems like this was not adequately done,” he said, adding that the community had faith the inquiry will result in clarity and improved safety and preparedness in the future. “But ultimately, it was also a failure that let down the police themselves. We had police that were shot and injured.”
Victoria Kim is the Australia correspondent for The New York Times, based in Sydney, covering Australia, New Zealand and the broader Pacific region.
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