The killing went on so long, those fleeing had time to scream “they’re reloading” as they scrambled for any place of safety they could find.
Those who could not were pitilessly gunned down.
“I saw children being targeted,” one man, who declined to give his name, told the Guardian. “I saw old people who couldn’t move being shot. It was a massacre. There was blood everywhere.
“It’s unbelievable. This doesn’t happen here. Not here.”
At least 12 people were killed and nearly 30 hospitalised after a mass shooting at Sydney’s famed Bondi Beach on Sunday, a terrorist attack described by the prime minister as “an act of evil antisemitism, terrorism that has struck the heart of this nation”.
Police said one alleged shooter was dead, and a second had been arrested and was in a critical condition.
Late on Sunday night, police were still searching for a possible third offender, saying they had unconfirmed information there could be more terrorists involved. Police later removed an improvised explosive device from a car nearby to where the shooting started.
Amid the terror, there were extraordinary acts of bravery. A phone-shot video swings from a prone body lying in the street to an unarmed man, dressed in white, creeping up behind a gunman.
The unarmed man lunges at the unsighted gunman’s arms and neck, wrenching the long weapon from his hands and turning it towards him, menacing the now disoriented terrorist with the firearm, before placing the weapon by a tree. The terrorist stumbles backwards.
From a nearby footbridge, shots ring out from another assailant. The attack continues.
Bondi is busy on a sunny Sunday afternoon in summer.
A drumming-and-dancing troupe, open to all-comers, usually sets up in the northern corner of the sand. There are beach races and surfing lessons, dog-walkers and family picnics. Volunteer life-savers in yellow-and-red patrol the beach.
At this time of year, too, Australia is sliding into the still torpor of a languid, hot Christmas break. There is peace here.
As the sun set on this idyllic weekend, members of Sydney’s Jewish community had gathered at a small park immediately behind the beach to light candles, to commune and to celebrate the beginning of Hanukah. To the Jewish festival of lights, terrorists brought darkness.
Just after a quarter to seven, in the softening daylight, two gunmen bearing long weapons suddenly opened fire from a nearby elevated footbridge which connecting the boulevard of Campbell Parade with the Bondi Surf Club.
Without pause, the men poured round after indiscriminate round into the crowd who had gathered in peace and in community.
Eyewitnesses reported the shooting ran on and on – five minutes some said, others 10, some reported 50 rounds being fired – before the gunmen were silenced.
One was killed, the other critically injured. Video showed two men pressed on to the ground by uniformed police on a small pedestrian bridge, firearms on the ground nearby. Officers could be seen trying to resuscitate one of the men.
Finn Green – who arrived in Bondi Beach on Tuesday from Bristol in the UK – was directly across from the footbridge when the shooters opened fire. He was speaking to his family on FaceTime as the shooting began.
“There were two of them [gunmen], one went to the right and hit a lady and the other went to the left and hit a man. I saw heaps of people running away. My family were screaming at me on the phone to find cover because they could hear the gunshots.”
Abdullah Ashrof said he saw two shooters on the bridge as he drove down Campbell Parade.
Ashrof, who still had blood on his hands from helping people in the aftermath of the shooting, parked to try to tell people to take cover and saw a police officer who had a gunshot wound. Others nearby appeared dead and injured.
“He was very brave. He was trying to stay conscious,” Ashrof said of the officer. “We were trying to talk to him … Just trying to help him, hold his hand and there are other people who are trying to wrap his wound, put pressure on the wound.”
Another woman with her children nearby had also been shot. “I think the worst thing was that two of her kids were right next to her,” Ashrof said. “She was … very brave, trying to stay conscious, trying to talk.”
Another eyewitness said he saw people screaming as they ran, shouting “they’re reloading, they’re reloading”. Many ran carrying children.
He said people barricaded themselves in toilet blocks, restaurants and surf clubs, seeking safety.
From Icebergs restaurant at the other end of Bondi beach, diners say they initially thought they were hearing fireworks, before they saw “swarms of people, like a school of fish being attacked by a shark” fleeing from the scene.
People fled up the beach – some into the water – falling over each to escape the gunmen.
Late into the night at Bondi, people gathered on street corners, lit by the flashing blue-red of dozens of police vehicles, to seek solace in solidarity with their neighbours. From makeshift trauma centres set up in surf clubs, people walked up darkened streets still covered in blood.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, convened a late-night meeting of the national security council.
“This is a targeted attack on Jewish Australians on the first day of Hanukah, which should be a day of joy, a celebration of faith. [This attack is] an act of evil antisemitism, terrorism that has struck the heart of our nation,” he said.
“An attack on Jewish Australians is an attack on every Australian. There is no place for this hate, violence and terrorism in our nation. Let me be clear: we will eradicate it.”
Jillian Segal, the government’s special envoy to combat antisemitism in Australia, said the images emerging from the attack “echo the horrors Australians hoped they would never see here”.
“An attack on a peaceful Jewish celebration is an attack on our national character and our way of life. Australia must defend both,” she said.
“As Australian Jews light our Hanukah candles tonight, we do so with the heaviest of hearts.”
Additional reporting by Anne Davies
