Australia heightening security for Chanukah after Bondi Beach massacre

Fifteen people, including a 10-year-old girl and an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor, were killed by father-and-son gunmen in the shooting at Bondi Beach on the first night of Chanukah 2025.

By Etgar Lekovits, JNS

Australian police are dramatically increasing their security presence for Chanukah next month following last year’s deadly holiday attack.

The police have deployed a newly established 250-member unit armed with assault rifles to conduct high-visibility patrols at major public events, places of worship, and crowded spaces.

The move comes after it emerged that only a handful of general-duty police officers were on duty during the Bondi Beach Chanukah attack in December 2025, despite earlier warnings by the Jewish community over a heightened climate of incitement to violence.

“There is no denying that seeing such heavily armed police officers on the streets of Sydney is deeply confronting, and as someone who experienced firsthand the horrific attack at Bondi, I wish it did not have to come to this,” Arsen Ostrovsky, head of the Sydney office of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) and a survivor of the Bondi terrorist shooting, told JNS on Monday.

“But the reality is that these measures have become necessary to protect not only the Jewish community but all Australians from the ongoing threat of terror.”

Australian Jewish organizations have long condemned the government for allowing a climate of incitement to violence following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre to run unchecked, saying it led to a series of hate-based assaults across the country that culminated in the Bondi attack.

Fifteen people, including a 10-year-old girl and an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor, were killed by father-and-son gunmen in the shooting at Bondi Beach on the first night of Chanukah 2025.

About 110,000 Jews live in Australia, primarily in Melbourne and Sydney. This year, the holiday begins at sunset in Dec. 4.