Met with a scene of horror at Bondi beach, strangers embraced, shed tears and gathered in silence | Bondi beach terror attack

The abandoned belongings of thousands of Australians were strewn across Bondi beach at sunrise on Monday, left behind just 10 hours earlier to escape the carnage.

Within hours, locals gathered bags, towels and surfboards and placed them on top of the beach for survivors, their friends and family to collect when they returned.

Sydneysiders came together on Monday not only to mourn those killed in the worst terror attack on Australian soil, but also to help each other.

At dawn, mourners silently stared at the ocean and abandoned cars on streets still blocked by police, searching for a place to ease their pain.

Some left flowers near the surf club next to the park where Hanukkah celebrations took place and where 15 people were shot and killed, allegedly by a father and son working together. Others laid flowers and lit candles around the edges of Bondi’s pavilion, which was still surrounded by a police cordon.

Hundreds of mourners focused their grief on the area at the back gate of the famous building after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stood silently behind the pavilion at 9am, laying pink flowers.

Albanese’s handful of flowers were joined by a sea of ​​bouquets, some given away for free by local stores, and a growing crowd sitting or standing silently on the hill.

Yossi Friedman, a local rabbi, came to pray at the beach at sunrise, just hours before alleged gunmen shot Friedman’s sister-in-law and her children and killed his friend Eli Schlanger.

“I want to be here this morning, put on my tallit and tefillin and say some prayers, just to be here, but I don’t quite know what to do with all these emotions,” he said.

“We’ll come back. I don’t know how… but we’ll come together like we always do and come back strong.”

Dozens of Australian Jews turned to each other for support and direction as they gathered on the hill. Chaim Levitansky was among the rabbis who hugged Eli Schlanger and their friends, prayed and left tefillin as they mourned those killed.

“We need to take action, we need to do good deeds,” he said.

“You knew Eli,” he said to a young man before putting on a phylactery and praying. “In which case he would be doing the same thing I was doing.”

This call to action brings with it anger towards Palestine defenders and the Albanian government, which has yet to act on the recommendations of its special envoy to combat anti-Semitism.

The crowd applauded David Ossip, chairman of the New South Wales board of Jewish MPs, as he condemned the government. They cheered when the police approached a woman wearing a keffiyeh at the protest.

A man verbally abused journalists for claiming they were spreading propaganda. A teenage boy made a connection between the murder and Sydney’s march in support of Palestine in August: “You see 100,000 people crossing the harbor bridge, what do you expect?”

At the same time, the support of the community was also very strong. Strangers hugged, cafes handed out coffee, clergy and mental health volunteers handed out tissues. A moment of silence was held with flowers and candles next to the lifeguard station and in front of the Bondi Beach public school, which, like five Jewish schools in Sydney, was closed that day.

Christian priests and headscarved women left flowers in front of the door of the mansion, where Australian and Israeli flags hung side by side.

The attack, which targeted the Jewish community, also claimed the life of at least one non-Jewish Australian and sent hundreds of others fleeing for their lives.

Paco Chumacero, who survived the shooting, said the gunmen opened fire on the Hanukkah festival and ignored dozens of people at a dance class in the park just 100 meters away.

“There were a lot of us here, but they were focused on one goal,” Chumacero said.

The Peruvian Australian said the attackers only turned their attention south when Ahmed al Ahmed knocked someone to the ground. He and his friends had begun to approach Al Ahmed to help before scattering into the trees when gunshots were heard.

When Chumacero returned on Monday, he found his scooter, which had been abandoned the night before, but stayed for an hour to mourn and watch silently with passersby.

“Even now I’m scared. I come here, I cry, it’s so scary.”

Josh, who preferred not to give his last name, was among those who returned to confront the crime scene from which he had fled the night before.

“I just saw a crowd of people running, hiding behind cars, jumping over fences, panic in people’s eyes, people running for their lives,” he said.

“[I felt] a little worried about going out again [but] If such things happen, you cannot stay inside with your head under the covers. “I guess you’ll have to get out eventually.”

• Support in Australia is available at: Beyond Blue at 1300 22 4636, Lifeline on 13 11 14 and grief line Call 1300 845 745. charity in the United Kingdom Mind You can be reached on 0300 123 3393. Other international helplines can be reached at: befrienders.org