Australia inquiry hears police missed Bondi attack threat assessment
A Bondi victim’s daughter said she was told it was a regret she had not died too, as an inquiry heard police failed to assess the threat before the attack.
The grief did not end at Bondi Beach. Sheina Gutnick, the daughter of Reuven Morrison, said she has faced a torrent of antisemitic abuse online, including a message saying it was a regret she had not been killed in the attack as well.
Her account landed as Australian authorities confronted a second failure around the December 2025 Hanukkah massacre, which killed 15 people and wounded more than 40 others. The inquiry heard that state police did not prepare a threat assessment for the Bondi event and denied a Jewish community request to station officers there, even after the Jewish Community Security Group emailed NSW Police less than a week before the celebration asking for a permanent police presence at Chanukah by the Sea.
The case has become central to a broader reckoning over how public violence now spills into a digital afterlife of harassment, especially for victims’ families. Morrison was among the people killed when two gunmen opened fire at the event. He was later described as rushing at one of the attackers and throwing bricks to shield others, a final act that made him one of the attack’s most closely watched victims. His daughter has since become a public advocate against antisemitism through her work with Combat Antisemitism Movement Australia.
The security breakdown was matched by a stark warning from Australia’s intelligence chief. ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess testified that antisemitism in Australia was left unchecked after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, saying the failure to respond to hatred “gave more permission for violence.” Burgess also said ASIO had shifted resources away from counterterrorism several years before the Bondi attack, redirecting attention toward espionage and foreign interference investigations.
The Bondi Beach massacre remains Australia’s deadliest mass shooting in about 30 years and its deadliest terrorist attack on Australian soil. At least 12 of the 15 victims were publicly identified soon after the attack, including Matilda, a 10-year-old girl, a Holocaust survivor, rabbis, a former NSW Police officer and a French national. Mourning later gathered at Bondi Pavilion and at the Chabad of Bondi memorial service, where Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese attended, underlining how the attack reverberated far beyond Sydney’s shoreline.
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