Bondi beach shooting live updates: details of victims emerge after terror attack at Jewish festival kills 11 people and injures 29 | Bondi beach terror attack

The Palestinian foreign ministry has issued a statement condemning the mass shooting.

The ministry said it “reiterates its firm rejection of all forms of violence, terrorism and extremism, which contradict humanitarian values”, and said it showed “full solidarity” with “friendly Australia”.

Australia recognised a Palestinian state in September alongside the UK and Canada- historic shift in decades of Western foreign policy taken in response to Israel’s war in Gaza.

The state’s police commissioner Malcolm Lanyon officially declared the attack a terrorist incident at 9.36pm local time on Sunday.

He said there had been “well over a thousand people there” at the beach, during the Hanukah celebration, when the shooters came out.

He confirmed that there were two shooters – one who was killed in the police response – and authorities are investigating if there was a third shooter.

He was asked by reporters why the shooting was declared a terrorist attack – which triggers a different set of legislation to other criminal offences.

“There was a range of circumstances. Obviously the fact that it’s the first day of Hanukah, the types of weapons, the offenders, some of the other items we found at the scene,” he said.

“We have found an improvised explosive device in a car which is linked to the deceased offender.

“So there’s a range of circumstances. And obviously the Jewish community has a right to feel safe.”

The Guardian’s Ben Doherty reports from Bondi beach:

The killing went on so long, those fleeing had time to scream “they’re re-loading” 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 twelve people were killed, and nearly 30 were in hospital following 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”.

So far, very little information has come out about the identities of those killed and injured in the Bondi beach attack.

We know that 11 people were killed, and one of the gunmen is also dead. A second gunman is injured and in hospital, as are 29 victims, among them two police officers who were wounded while responding to the attack.

• London-born rabbi Eli Schlanger, 41, has been named as one of the victims, Jewish News reports. The father-of-five, who was assistant rabbi at Chabad of Bondi, a Jewish cultural centre, grew up in Temple Fortune, north London. His first cousin, Brighton-based Rabbi Zalman Lewis, told Jewish News: “How can a joyful rabbi who went to a beach to spread happiness and light, to make the world a better place, have his life ended in this way?”

• One Israeli citizen was among those killed, the Israeli foreign ministry said. It did not name the victim.

• The Jerusalem Post reported that one of its contributors, Arsen Ostrovsky, head of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council Sydney office, was wounded in the attack.

Throughout the night, Australians have been grieving a shocking attack on Jewish Australians on the country’s iconic Bondi beach.

Communities are still reeling. “This senseless attack is one which is an actor of terror,” prime minister Anthony Albanese said on Sunday night. “My message to Jewish Australians is that your fellow Australians stand with you tonight in condemning this act of terror.”

• At least 11 people were killed and almost 30 wounded when gunmen fired on a Hanukah celebration on Bondi beach on Sunday, in what Australian police and officials described as a terrorist attack. One of the gunmen also died.

• London-born rabbi Eli Schlanger, 41, has been named as one of the victims of the Bondi beach terrorist attack. Jewish News reports that the father-of-five, who was assistant rabbi at Chabad of Bondi, a Jewish cultural centre, grew up in Temple Fortune, north London, and had family members of Kinloss synagogue in Finchley.

• One Israeli citizen was also among those killed, the Israeli foreign ministry said.

• A number of “suspicious devices” have been found in the aftermath of the shooting where hundreds of people had gathered for the Chanukah by the Sea event to celebrate the start of the Jewish festival on Sunday.

• A man who rushed to the scene to tackle one of the gunmen has two bullet wounds, one in his arm and one in his hand, but is recovering well in hospital, his relative said. Seven News reported the bystander was a 43-year-old fruit shop owner from the Sutherland Shire.

• British police will put more officers into Jewish communities after an antisemitic terrorist attack at Bondi beach in Australia. Hanukah, the Jewish festival of lights also known as Chanukah, begins on Sunday evening, with celebrations planned across the UK in the coming days.