Deadly shooting in Australia targets Hanukkah celebration
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 14 December 2025
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Several gunmen attacked Jews celebrating the start of Hanukkah on Sydney’s Bondi Beach. One gunman is dead and a second suspect is in critical condition. We hear from an eyewitness, the local member of parliament, and from a senior figure in Australia's Jewish community.
Also on the programme: a communist candidate takes on the far right in a presidential run-off in Chile; the woman caught up in the 2018 Parkland shooting in Florida as a child is on campus when the latest gun attack takes place at Brown University; and the palm tree that's taken sixty years to flower.
(Photo: Candles burn following the attack on a Jewish holiday celebration at Sydney's Bondi Beach, in Sydney, Australia, December 15, 2025. Credit: Reuters/Flavio Brancaleone)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:08.9 | Hello and welcome to News Hour from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:12.0 | Coming to you live from London, I'm James Kamara Sami. |
| 0:15.1 | We begin with the horror that unfolded several hours ago now on one of the world's most famous beaches, |
| 0:20.8 | Bondi Beach in Sydney, |
| 0:22.1 | a name synonymous with the laid-back enjoyment of sun, sea and surfing, a name that will now be |
| 0:27.8 | linked with a very different, much darker event. The images that were filmed beforehand show a |
| 0:33.6 | carefree occasion, families enjoying a celebration of the Jewish Festival of Hanukkah. |
| 0:38.3 | More than a thousand people, Jews and non-Jews strolling by the sea, eating pastries, children, |
| 0:43.9 | petting animals at a petting zoo. And then at around 6.45pm local time, on the first day of the |
| 0:50.6 | Jewish Festival of Lights, two men in black shirts emerge from a car on a nearby |
| 0:56.4 | bridge and begin to fire indiscriminately. |
| 1:06.5 | As the shots rang out, there were scenes of pandemonium as terrified people rushed for safety and cover. |
| 1:13.2 | Among those caught up in the chaos was Marcos Cavalio. |
| 1:16.5 | I was actually really close to where everything was happening, but I was on the sand and the shooting was happening on the grass next to the outdoor gym. |
| 1:30.2 | So I just started running for my life towards the North Bondi Grass Hill. And me and a bunch of other people had to hide behind the |
| 1:37.4 | ice cream van that is usually at North Bondi. And we stayed there for what felt an eternity, |
| 1:42.8 | still hearing the shots. |
| 1:44.9 | Well, within the past few hours, the casualty figures have risen. |
| 1:48.1 | Sixteen people now known to have died, including one 10-year-old girl, more than 40 others hospitalized. |
| 1:54.4 | Those 16 include one of the attackers. |
| 1:58.0 | Another suspect, who police say is the first shooter's son, is critically wounded and in police custody, although it is the bravery of an unarmed bystander that has really captured the imagination. He can be seen in amateur video footage jumping on one of the attackers and grabbing his gun from his hands. Well, it is now the morning after in Sydney |
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