Bondi Beach shooting LIVE updates: ‘Thank god for the second amendment’: Elon Musk lashes Australia’s strict new gun reforms – as police call for calm as locals react to increased patrols at Bondi Beach

Large crowds gathered at Bondi Beach for an emotional evening vigil ahead of a national day of reflection to mark one week since the terrorist attack.

Mourners surrounded the makeshift memorial at Bondi Pavilion on Saturday night, where they turned on the flashlights on their phones in honour of the 15 victims.

A national day of reflection will be held on Sunday to honour the terror attack victims and stand in solidarity with the Jewish community.

Flags will be flown at half mast to mark one week since the attack.

Australians have also been asked to light a candle and put it in their front window, as well as observe a minute’s silence at 6.47pm.

Waverley Council will begin removing the makeshift memorial from Monday.

‘We will ensure photographs are captured and will collect a representation of materials from the floral tribute site to preserve and use in future memorial materials for the families as appropriate,’ a spokesperson said.

‘The Premier’s Department and Council will work together to safely and respectfully dispose of the flowers, including composting, recycling and disposal of associated materials, as well as donation of any toys.’

Billionaire and owner of X, Elon Musk, has made a controversial comment about the Albanese government’s gun reform laws after the Bondi Beach terror attack.

‘Thank God for the Second Amendment,’ he wrote on X, while retweeting a clip of the prime minister.

In the United States, the amendment reads as the right for Americans to a ‘well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed’.

It has often been used a defence against crackdowns on gun laws in the US.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced on Friday that his government was launching a national buyback scheme to collect and destroy newly-banned and illegal firearms from Australian gun owners.

A far-right X account had reshared footage of Albanese’s announcement, falsely claiming the policy a ‘massive gun grab program’.

Locals in Bondi Beach are preparing for tomorrow’s national day of reflection, which will honour the victims of the terror attack and stand in solidarity with the Jewish community.

Flags will be flown at half mast to mark one week since the attack.

Australians have also been asked to light a candle and put it in their front window, as well as observe a minute’s silence at 6.47pm.

NSW Police told Daily Mail this afternoon that they are conducting planning in relation to reflection and memorial events within the area to ensure all participants can gather safely.

‘As part of these planning arrangements specialist police will be attending various locations,’ the force said.

‘The community should expect an increased presence of emergency personnel in the area and should not be alarmed.’

Police have not received any warning about threats to the events.

There have also been increased police patrols across Sydney’s eastern suburbs after the Bondi Beach massacre.

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has doubled down on her calls for an inquiry into the terror attack at Bondi Beach on Sunday.

‘Millions of Australians, particularly those of Jewish faith, want, need and deserve a Commonwealth Royal Commission into the Bondi Massacre terrorist attack,’ she said in a statement this afternoon.

‘At minimum, it must investigate the rise of antisemitism, government inaction that allowed hideous antisemitism to fester in the days, weeks, months and years since 7 October, 2023, across Australia, as well as the effectiveness and powers of Australia’s counter-terrorism system.’

She slammed Anthony Albanese’s ‘unclear’ position on the issue, publicly inviting him to sit down with her and Jewish community leaders when Shabbat ends.

The group would then draft the ‘terms of reference on a bipartisan basis’.

‘Prime Minister, the time for words is finished. The time for action is now,’ Ley continued.

‘Recall the parliament on Monday so we can legislate immediate responses and support a Commonwealth Royal Commission today so we get the longer term responses right.’

Ley also thanked NSW Premier Chris Minns for calling on the prime minister to introduce a Royal Commission.

Minns has supported the move earlier today in a press conference.

‘Until we have a full and accurate picture of exactly how this happened, with a plan to ensure that it doesn’t happen again, then I don’t have answers to the people of New South Wales about what happened on Sunday,’ he said.

The Prime Minister has not indicated that he will hold a royal commission into the attack.

AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett has confirmed federal police will investigate who the alleged Bondi gunmen spoke to before 15 people were killed in a horror massacre on Sunday.

She said officers would be taking efforts to ‘identify others’ who could be a risk to the community in a statement on Saturday.

‘We will use this information to cast a wider net to identify others – who may not be directly linked to this investigation – but should be under the attention of law enforcement and intelligence agencies,’ Commissioner Barrett said.

She said the NSW Joint Counter Terrorism Team was analysing evidence seized during search warrants as recently as Friday.

‘The location of the search warrants will not be made public, but let me reassure Australians that we are leaving no stone unturned in Australia and overseas in this investigation,’ she said.

‘I will ensure we have pulled every single lever we can to protect our Jewish community – and this week I revealed those described as hate preachers are being investigated and have been for some time by the AFP.

‘It is clear some of these preachers have hired lawyers to ensure they do not reach the threshold to be charged for hate speech and other crimes.

‘It is clear some of these preachers know exactly what they are doing – and are clearly trying to cause fear and division.’

Mourners braved the rain at Bondi Pavilion to pay tribute to the victims of the shooting on Sunday.

Members of the public stood quietly at the memorial, some laying flowers in the growing pile at the front of the tourist spot.

Police had reopened Bondi Beach on Thursday after they concluded their investigations into the massacre that targeted Hanukkah celebrations.

Naveed Akram, the 24-year-old who allegedly opened fire at a crowd celebrating Hanukkah at Bondi Beach on Sunday with his father Sajid, 50, is in police custody in hospital.

AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett confirmed the condition of Akram in a joint press conference with Anthony Albanese.

She said police ‘will prepare a thorough and fulsome brief of evidence to prosecute the alleged offender now before the courts’.

‘We will identify the methods, capability and connections of these alleged offenders to determine who the alleged offenders communicated with leading up to the attack,’ she added.

‘We will use this information to cast a wider net to identify others who may not be directly linked to this investigation, but should be under the attention of law enforcement and intelligence agencies.’

The location of federal police search warrants during their investigation will not be made public, but she said AFP will leave ‘no stone unturned in Australia and overseas’.

Naveed is pictured far right in this photo.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has thrown his support behind American strikes on ISIS targets in Syria earlier this morning.

‘These strikes are a direct response to ISIS attacks on US defence personnel and the actions of the United States government are timely, swift and decisive, and we support those actions,’ he said on Saturday.

‘ISIS has caused untold suffering around the world, both directly with the actions that they’ve taken, but also through their evil ideology that they spread.’

American forces struck over 70 targets in the country linked to ISIS, a US official told Fox News.

The move delivers on Donald Trump’s promise to retaliate for the killing of two US Army soldiers and an interpreter during a terrorist ambush in the country’s central region last weekend.

‘Because of ISIS’s vicious killing of brave American Patriots in Syria, whose beautiful souls I welcomed home to American soil earlier this week in a very dignified ceremony, I am hereby announcing that the United States is inflicting very serious retaliation,’ Trump said in a post on Truth Social Friday evening.

The bombardment is reportedly being carried out by US Airforce F-15E Strike Eagles and A-10C Thunderbolts alongside Army helicopters and artillery rocket systems.

Although officials said ‘numerous’ militants were killed, full casualty numbers were not provided on Friday evening American time.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has addressed the ‘deep pain and sorrow’ Australians have faced following the Bondi Beach attack.

‘The terrorist atrocity committed against innocent people, celebrating Hanukkah last week at Bondi Beach, targeting our cherished Jewish Australian community, has left our nation grieving and angry,’ he said.

‘This has been the darkest week in Australia’s recent history.’

Albanese told reporters he will reconvene the cabinet in Canberra, adding the massacre was an ‘ISIS-inspired attack here in Australia’.

‘That evil ideology represents something that should have no place in any consideration of humanity and who we are as global citizens, let alone as Australians,’ he said.

When asked whether his government had the right security priorities prior to the Bondi attacks, Albanese defended his government.

‘We continue to prioritise keeping Australians safe,’ he said. ‘The government and all of the agencies prioritise the threats that they have identified.

‘And foremost of that is the threat from some of the extreme Islamist-inspired threats that are there.

‘So my government continues to engage in all of the threats, but they are prioritised according to the advice that we receive.’

Albanese also slammed criticism from the federal opposition, telling reporters that ‘this is not a time for partisan politics’.

‘This is a time for us to unite together in what we know is in Australia’s national interest,’ he said.

The prime minister then referenced how the ‘nation came together’ during the Port Arthur massacre in 1996.

‘The opposition at that time provided support for those issues rather than looked for product differentiation,’ he said.

‘We will certainly reach out to the opposition.’

NSW Premier Chris Minns has announced the ‘globalise the intifada’ chant will be banned, among a series of new measures announced this afternoon.

The phrase has been used to call for international support of Palestinian resistance against Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territories.

‘We’ll also make it very clear that horrific recent events have shown that the chant “globalise the intifada” is hate speech and it encourages violence in our community,’ Minns said during a press conference on Saturday.

‘The chant will be banned alongside other hateful comments and statements made in our community.’

Earlier this week, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke introduced tougher laws on hate speech, but drew the line at banning the chant via federal legislation.

State laws on face coverings being worn in public will also be ammended.

Currently, police may only remove coverings ‘if they believe that the person’s identity or the person is in the midst of committing an indictable offence’.

‘We’ll change the law so it can be for any offence which is particularly important in the context of clamping down on hate speech so that police can be in a position to identify who is responsible for offensive conduct, hateful slogans or racist behaviour,’ Minns said.

He also supported calls for a royal commission into the Bondi terror attack.

‘Until we have a full and accurate picture of exactly how this happened, with a plan to ensure that it doesn’t happen again, then I don’t have answers to the people of New South Wales about what happened on Sunday,’ Minns said.

Seven men arrested at gunpoint in dramatic scenes have alleged that they were ‘tasered and beaten’ by officers during the ordeal.

The group, aged between 19 and 24, was stopped by heavily-armed officers outside Westfield Liverpool in southwest Sydney on Thursday afternoon.

Police received reports the men, who had travelled from Melbourne, were possibly heading to Bondi. However, investigators have found no link to last Sunday’s massacre at the beach, which claimed 15 lives.

Some of the group were arrested in an alleyway and have since claimed that because there were no cameras there, they were ‘treated harsher’.

‘They opened the door, tasered us, we had our hands up, they pulled up next to us, smashed into the car in front of us, pulled guns on us said ‘put your hands up’, one of the men said.

‘We put our hands up, [they] tasered us even though we put our hands up, dragged us out the car, smashed us on the pavement, tasered us while we were on the pavement, handcuffed us then beat us.’

NSW Police declined to comment on the allegations.

Investigations remain ongoing.

The group dubbed the so-called ‘Liverpool Seven’ were released on Friday afternoon without charge after spending the night in custody.

Police found insufficient evidence to keep the men behind bars.

While the group were in custody, NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said the response to the information received about the men had been prompt.

‘Based on that information we had a risk that we did not believe that we could tolerate,’ he said.

‘We won’t accept violence, and what you saw was a very prompt and very firm response by the NSW Police.’

But one of the men has since claimed the group had been racially profiled, adding that they had not done anything.

‘We didn’t do nothing wrong. My beliefs are we all live peacefully, we don’t give a f*** about no one,’ he said.

Another said: ‘[It was a] misunderstanding. We told [police] we were here for a holiday.’

Walter Mikac lost his wife Nanette and two young daughters Alannah and Madeline in the Port Arthur massacre.

Martin Bryant used a Cole AR-15 and battle rifle to shoot innocent victims on April 28, 1996, killing 35 people and injuring 23 at the popular tourist area in Tasmania.

He pleaded guilty to the attack and was given 35 life sentences without parole.

Australia reacted to the massacre by strengthening gun laws with the National Firearms Agreement.

In the wake of the horrific Bondi Beach shooting on Sunday, Mr Mikac, who founded The Alannah and Madeline Foundation to protect children from violence, has praised reforms to tighten gun laws, introduced by NSW Premier Chris Minns on Friday.

‘I am pleased that the Premier Minns has listened to the community and to our gun safety experts and reconfirmed community safety as the central tenet of our gun laws,’ Mr Mikac told news.com.au on Saturday.

‘The horrific terror attack at Bondi Beach last Sunday is a devastating reminder that strong gun laws must evolve to address new risks – not be weakened or undermined.

‘This attack was fuelled by hate, but guns allowed that hate to be weaponised as terror.

‘I extend my deepest condolences to the victims and their families and loved ones.

‘I stand in love and solidarity with Australia’s Jewish community, the people of NSW, and with all Australians in the wake of this unspeakable act of violence and terror.

‘My heart aches for the many lives lost, including the life of beautiful 10-year-old Matilda, and to their families, on what should have been a day of joy, community and celebration.’