00:00it's just
00:29just grief, utter grief. Anger will set in, but at the moment it's more disbelief than
00:36anything. And on the one hand, I think everyone knew this was going to happen sooner or later
00:40with the trajectory that we were on as a society. But for it to actually happen here at our
00:46Hanukkah event in Bondi Beach, which every year is just the most beautiful family event
00:51with kids running around and, you know, it's a celebration. And to think that people were
00:56there with heavy weapons, picking off children and the elderly, and just getting all the
01:03facts this morning and hearing about more dead and people dying overnight in the hospital
01:07and the ages of the deceased. You know, a man who I knew very well in his 90s is dead, a
01:12survivor of the Holocaust. The rabbi, who's a dear, dear friend of mine and was really a
01:19pillar of our community, did so much for everybody. He's among the dead. It's just impossible to
01:24rationalise and comprehend that this has happened.
01:42Oh, look, I mean, this is obviously the heart of the community. This is, you know, the core
01:47of Jewish life in this city, but it's also a Hanukkah event. You know, it's on a random
01:53attack that happens to ensnare the Jewish community. People came to kill Jewish children
01:59and women and the elderly. And they knew that here they would have, in a relatively small
02:04area, hundreds and hundreds of people, like fish in a barrel. And that's what they wanted.
02:10They wanted to kill as many Jewish people as possible simply because they were Jewish,
02:14for the crime of being Jewish.
02:21Look, I remember speaking to the media outside my former home on January 17th after the firebombing
02:32attack there. And I said at the time that this will end in someone getting killed. And at
02:37that time things were escalating from, you know, aggressive protests and vandalism to
02:44firebombings. And we knew at that point in time when there were people in our country prepared
02:48to light fires on busy residential streets, this wouldn't stop. But at the same time, who
02:54could have thought that we would take that enormous leap from firebombing, which is serious
02:59enough to actual murder, massacre of this sort, body bags on Bondi Beach at a Hanukkah event.
03:06We saw those fireworks at the start. And then, next second, we see people lying on the
03:21floor, so a kid gets shot. And then, next second, we see people lying on the floor, so a kid
03:26get shot. It was probably the worst feeling I've ever seen. Ran back up to the shore, making
03:39sure everyone was alright. Went up to North Bondi, saw that unfold. Everyone was running,
03:44everyone was recording. We went back down and then, unfortunately, I saw a couple dead bodies
03:49and it was the worst feeling, the worst could describe it.
03:58Listen, the community is quite shaken. People are broken. People are overwhelmed. But at the
04:05same time, we're resilient. We find ourselves during the festival of Hanukkah, which is about
04:11bringing light. It's about, we don't light the candle in our dining room, we light the candle
04:15near the window. We light the candle in a public beach. We light the candles everywhere because
04:20we want to spread that light. And that light was last night by terrorists trying to put
04:28out that light. We're not going to allow them to put out that light. Tonight, we're going
04:32to light two candles. And tomorrow night, we're going to light three candles. Because that's
04:35the way we, that's the way we do things. That's the way we as a community hold together,
04:41support each other, and stick to the mission of making the world a better place.
04:46All those things that we've been saying are concerns, have been concerns and are still concerns. Am I
05:14surprised? Absolutely. I never thought that we would see something like that in this country.
05:19So I'm absolutely surprised. Do I think that those things need to be re-looked? Absolutely.
05:26We need to really have a good, hard think about how we deal with social media, how we deal with messaging,
05:32what we tolerate, whether it's in the name of free speech or otherwise. We really need to have a strong
05:38think about it because this is just unacceptable on any level.
05:42Our community is in shock and mourning. I mean, this is an unspeakable tragedy that has occurred.
05:48You know, a deliberate terrorist attack, a cowardly attack, targeting innocents,
05:54enjoying the first night of Hanukkah. It was a targeted attack against the Jewish community.
05:58And people are still in shock. We are tight-knit. We're close.
06:04Everybody knows somebody who has been affected. And it truly is devastating.
06:10Just because of this pedestrian crossing here, so we're behind three cars. And for some reason, we were just, people watching him, who we were both looking out, were about three metres away from one of the, we didn't know his shooter at the time. And I thought he was getting out of the back of an Uber because he got out the back left-hand door. And for a split
06:16second, I felt sorry for him. I thought he was tripping and picking up his crutches. But that's what I thought he was picking up off the ground.
06:22The other four guys tripped, crutches. And he just picks up... I saw, like, two. And then, he just goes, and it doesn't look great, but not only the fact that we are not.
06:28The fact that they don't really amass and we are, but you know, the fact that they don't get into his car, you're not an accident, or something that is going to be so good.
06:38And I thought he was tripping and picking up his crutches. That's what I thought he was picking up off the ground. Like, you saw all four guys tripped, crutches, and he just picks up...
06:50two and then he just picks up one and it's just huge rifle and it just instantly shoots
06:55towards towards that way he wasn't at the like kind of in front of the bridge he shoots that way
07:00there's hundreds of people at the bus stop and i just said to me i would just drive he has a gun
07:05so tommy just takes off and i just think i'm gonna get shot in the back so i didn't want to scream
07:09until he could leg it and we normally come up this way and instead we went all the way down
07:13the promenade to the south end just screaming the whole way down run he has a gun like i've
07:19lost my voice they were just screaming the whole way down and then once we got into back streets
07:23we just kept screaming at everyone like get inside get inside
07:49when i was screaming at everyone i was thinking oh there was a fest because we drove past the
08:01festival and look we thought oh christmas markets or something we didn't know it was hanukkah
08:04um and i just go in my head i'm like if it's firecrackers or if it's a cat gun
08:09and it's just someone for the festival i'd rather be wrong and yell at people
08:14um and get in trouble then like if i'm right i gotta tell everyone to run and i had my phone in
08:19my hand and i thought to call trooper zero and i go everyone else is going to be calling it i just
08:23have to tell people to run but still to like when i got the house and it wasn't on the news yet i
08:27thought it wasn't i was like oh maybe i was wrong and i think maybe i thought maybe i was wrong and
08:31it didn't like if it was a fireworks or firecrackers or anything but i know what i saw i saw him shoot
08:36it on and it just all hell broke was there's just people everywhere kids everywhere kids screaming
08:42people screaming and yeah just everyone everywhere just yeah it was horrible
08:58no sorry to interrupt
09:06you
09:09you
09:09you
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