By Scott Murdoch and Renju Jose
SYDNEY, Dec 17 (Reuters) – Sydney will pause in grief on Wednesday as funerals begin for some of the 15 people killed in Australia’s deadliest mass shooting in three decades — a Jewish Hanukkah celebration-turned-tragedy that shook the nation and intensified fears of rising antisemitism and violent extremism.
Police are zeroing in on the alleged father-and-son shooters, Sajid Akram, 50, and his 24-year-old son named in local media as Naveed, as they probe possible links to Islamic State. Sajid was killed in a shootout with officers at the Bondi Beach park where the attack took place on Sunday.
Investigators expect to question the son as early as Wednesday, once medication wears off and legal counsel is present, New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said. He remains in a Sydney hospital after emerging from a coma after being shot by police.
A funeral for Rabbi Eli Schlanger, an assistant rabbi at Chabad Bondi Synagogue and a father of five, will take place at 11 a.m. (0000 GMT).
He was known for his work for Sydney’s Jewish community through Chabad, a global organization fostering Jewish identity and connection. Schlanger would travel to prisons and meet with Jewish people living in Sydney’s public housing communities, Jewish leader Alex Ryvchin said on Monday.
ALBANESE TO ATTEND FUNERALS IF INVITED, HE SAYS
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese did not disclose whether he would attend any of the funerals.
“I would attend anything that I’m invited to; these funerals that are taking place are to farewell people’s loved ones,” Albanese told ABC Radio, suggesting he was not invited to attend.
Albanese said Ahmed al-Ahmed, 43, the man who tackled one of the shooters to disarm his rifle and suffered gunshot wounds, was due to undergo surgery on Wednesday.
Al-Ahmed’s uncle, Mohammed al-Ahmed in Syria, said his nephew left his hometown in Syria’s northwest province of Idlib nearly 20 years ago to seek work in Australia.
“We learned through social media. I called his father and he told me that it was Ahmed. Ahmed is a hero, we’re proud of him. Syria in general is proud of him,” the uncle told Reuters.
Albanese is facing criticism that his centre-left government did not do enough to prevent the spread of antisemitism in Australia during the two-year Israel-Gaza war and failed to avert the mass shooting.
“We will work with the Jewish community, we want to stamp out and eradicate antisemitism from our society,” Albanese told reporters.
“We want to also stamp out the evil ideology of what would appear to be from the investigators an ISIS inspired attack. That has no place that sort of hatred.”
Opposition Jewish lawmaker Julian Leeser has said there was “white-hot anger among the community” over the attack.
Other victims included a Holocaust survivor, a husband and wife who first approached the gunmen before they started firing and a 10-year-old girl named Matilda, according to interviews, officials and media reports.
Albanese paid tribute to Boris and Sofia Gurman who were killed in the shootings.
“Boris attacked one of these terrorists as he got out of the car and that caused Mr and Mrs Gurman… to lose their lives,” Albanese said.
Matilda’s father told a Bondi vigil on Tuesday night he did not want his daughter’s legacy to be forgotten.
“We came here from Ukraine … and I thought that Matilda is the most Australian name that can ever exist. So just remember the name, remember her,” local media reported him as saying.
Health authorities said on Wednesday that 22 patients were receiving care in several Sydney hospitals for their injuries.
The men accused of carrying out Sunday’s Bondi Beach attack had travelled to the southern Philippines, a region long plagued by Islamist militancy, before the attack that Australian police said appeared to be inspired by Islamic State.
In Bondi on Wednesday, swimmers gathered on Sydney’s most popular beach and held a minute’s silence.
“This week has obviously been very profound, and this morning, I definitely feel a sense of the community getting together, and a sense of everyone sitting together. Everyone’s grieving, everyone’s understanding and processing it in their own way,” Archie Kalaf, a 24-year-old Bondi man told Reuters.
(Reporting by Scott Murdoch and Renju Jose in Sydney; Editing by Howard Goller and Lincoln Feast.)
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