Bondi Beach shooting: Live updates as first funerals for victims begin, new details emerge on Sajid Akram

Wails have been heard as hundreds of mourners solemnly filled into a Bondi synagogue for the funeral of a local rabbi gunned down in a shooting massacre.

Assistant Rabbi Eli Schlanger was one of 15 people killed when father-and-son terrorists opened fire on a religious celebration on iconic Bondi Beach on Sunday.

Hundreds of his community have gathered at his local synagogue - Chabad of Bondi - to commemorate his life on Wednesday morning, amid a heavy police and security presence, including the complete closure of the road where the funeral is occurring.

Many attendees shed tears as they entered to pay their respects.

“We are here, raw and devastated, crying in unberarable pain, along with the entire Jewish people and all good people across Australia and the world over the wake of the horrific terrorist attack that was perpertrated in our city,” Rabbi Ritchi Moss said as he opened proceedings.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was not in attendance. Earlier on Wednesday, he said he would only attend funerals of victims if invited.

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Nationals leader David Littleproud has called on Anthony Albanese to recall Parliament over the Bondi Beach massacre, claiming proposed gun reforms are a “smokescreen”.

Mr Littleproud has mirrored remarks from the political right in recent days that the response to Bondi Beach should not focus on Australia’s already “strong” gun laws but on immigration.

“We’ve got a report from his (Mr Albanese’s) own special envoy into anti-Semitism that has said in recommendation 9 that we should strengthen our immigration laws to be able to increase the screening on values and particularly around extremist views on anti-Semitism,” he told Newswire.

“Why wouldn’t we go back to Canberra and do that? Why wouldn’t we say to these people, it’s not in vain (and) that we actually can do something.”

Mr Littleproud accused the Prime Minister of having “failed” to lead and having “missed his moment”.

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An ISIS-style propaganda video featuring the alleged Bondi Beach father-and-son terrorists has been seized by police following raids at the rental Campsie sharehouse.

The footage reportedly shows Naveed Akram, 24, and his father Sajid, 50, posing with weapons and expressing extremist views, and is believed to have been filmed in Australia, though investigators are still determining whether it was made before or after their trip to the Philippines.

Police sources told The Daily Telegraph that both the video and the pair’s overseas travel are now central to the investigation into Sunday’s deadly attack at Bondi.

AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett said “early indications point to a terrorist attack inspired by Islamic State.”

Senior investigators believe the material will confirm that the assault was planned well in advance, with one source saying, “It’s hard not to look at this video and not think they had been practising for the attack.”

Naveed and Sajid Akram are known to have travelled to the southern Philippines early last month, possibly to the ISIS-linked region of Mindanao, before returning home on November 30, two weeks before the attack.

The police source bluntly put it: “No one believes they went there for a holiday in the sun.”

Australia’s top former security and intelligence chiefs say the country is at a “turning point,” after the Bondi terror attack that has killed 15, warning that gun law reforms alone won’t curb anti-Semitism or the threat of extremist ideologies.

Speaking to The Australian, former intelligence and defence leaders Nick Warner, Duncan Lewis and Dennis Richardson, who all served under both Labor and Coalition governments, have urged federal and state authorities to intensify efforts to tackle surging anti-Semitism directly.

Mr Warner, head of Australia’s Secret Intelligence Service from 2009-2017 said “Australia is divided like never before … our multicultural miracle is starting to tear apart. I spend a lot of my time in ­Caulfield, the Jewish heart of Melbourne. As anti-Semitism has grown over the past two years, my neighbours have come to live in fear.”

“The tragedy of Bondi needs to be a turning point, led by the federal and state governments, for serious action to crack down on anti-Semitism, to stem the fear, hatred and anger in our communities.”

The director-general of ASIO from 2014-2019, Mr Lewis, said “at the core, this is less about gun laws and public ­announcements, and more about the deadly ideologies that propel followers towards acts of ­violence … this must be urgently addressed”.

“There is no place in this ­country for politically and religiously motivated violence of this sort. We must act with increased urgency and resolution to stamp out anti-Semitism.”

Anthony Albanese is asked again about his Government’s progress on the recommendations contained in anti-Semitism envoy Jillian Segal’s report.

He and other ministers have faced repeated questions since the Bondi shooting about the lack of a formal response to the plan.

The Prime Minister said he met Ms Segal again on Tuesday – they also spoke on Sunday and Monday – and that the Government is “continuing to work through a whole range of the measures” from her report.

“If we need to do something more about hate speech, for example – we have outlawed hate speech that can lead to violence – if there’s a need to strengthen them, we’re up for whatever’s necessary,” he said.

“It is, indeed … hard to legislate against such massive hatred and people who have this perversion of Islam that leads them to support Islamic State and to have a view that somehow there is some reward for them. There is not. They are evil.”

Asked about the feeling among Jewish families and leaders that his Government hasn’t done enough to fight anti-Semitism, Mr Albanese said the battle against the hatred “has been around for a long period of time”.

“We have called (it) out and will continue to call out. We’ll do whatever is necessary to work with the community to stamp out the scourge of anti-Semitism, of which we have seen a rise in Australia and around the world since October 7.”

The Prime Minister said he met with rabbis and Jewish leaders on Tuesday evening at an event at the Governor-General’s official Sydney residence, Admiralty House.

“It was an opportunity for us to pray together, for us to have those personal discussions as well,” Anthony Albnaese said, mentioning that he spoke with family members of the victims of the shooting.

“This is an incredibly traumatic time for members of the Australian Jewish community. It has also shaken our nation.

“Our nation will respond. We will hold people to account for what has occurred.

“We will give whatever powers are necessary to our police forces, to our security and intelligence agencies arising from this act of terror, an act of anti-Semitism that we saw play out on Sunday night.”

Anthony Albanese and Governor-General Sam Mostyn have visited hospital staff at St Vincent’s in Sydney.

Speaking outside the hospital, the Prime Minister praises the doctors, nurses, surgeons and other health staff for saving lives in their work after the shooting on Sunday night.

The hospital had eight operating theatres running at once as gunshot victims arrived on the night.

“In a traumatic experience, they responded with professionalism, with compassion and with the best of Australian values,” Mr Albanese said.

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles has been heckled during a live interview in the wake of the Bondi Beach mass shooting.

While speaking with Sky News on Wednesday from Geelong in his Victorian electorate about the massacre, a man can be heard accusing the Labor frontbencher of failing Australians.

“You and your Government are an absolute disgrace… You, the Prime Minister, Penny Wong,” he yelled.

After the heckling, Sky host Peter Stefanovic asked Mr Marles if his Government had “failed” to act on the concerns of the Jewish community.

“We have been calling out anti-Semitic. Obviously, we commissioned the (Special Envoy Jillian) Segal report. Not for a moment would I suggest that the work is complete. This is a long term project,” he said.

It comes after fellow Labor frontbencher Tony Burke was heckled while laying flowers at the Bondi Pavillion.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong says the Labor Government knows it must do more to stamp out anti-Semitism.

“We all understand we need to do more. We will dedicate every resource required to making sure Jewish-Australians are safe and protected,” she told ABC Radio National on Wednesday.

“We are determined to work to bring Australians together. I keep saying this, but it is true. We are stronger when we are more united. And there is much in our community that we can look to that gives us hope and inspiration.

“Consistently, the Government, the Prime Minister, all ministers, including I, have been very clear about the unacceptable anti-Semitism in our society. I’ve made that public statement many times. But as I said to you at the outset of this interview, we all have to do more, and I accept that.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says tightening gun laws in the wake of the Bondi Beach terror attack is not a substitute for action on fighting anti-Semitism.

“This was ISIS-inspired extremist ideology leading to a terrorist act that has resulted in tragic consequences for the Jewish community in Sydney, with an attack taking place at an iconic destination. That is the main issue here,” he told ABC Radio on Wednesday.

“But we can’t get around the fact that also the fact that a fellow was able to get a gun licence, have six guns, four of which were used in this attack by someone living in the suburbs of Sydney in Bonnyrigg.”

The PM said a national approach is needed to impose stricter regulations.

“I don’t want there to be gaps in the system, which is why I want to see that occur. Now, that isn’t a substitute for action on anti-Semitism, but as a common-sense position that we shouldn’t allow just New South Wales to act alone.”