Police snipers have been positioned on top of apartment buildings around Bondi Beach ahead of a vigil to mark a week since the mass shooting that claimed 15 lives.
Police riot squad members, officers in camouflage and balaclavas and mounted police are overseeing the Bondi vigil which will be held at 6.47pm tonight – the time the shootings occurred last Sunday.
Health nurses will also be on hand to help anyone struggling with the emotional occasion.
Tonight’s vigil at Bondi Beach also marks the final night of Hanukkah.
NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon warned there would be officers carrying long arm guns as an extra security measure.
‘I want to reassure the community that this does not reflect a heightened security alert,’ Commissioner Lanyon said.
‘We know how deeply this tragedy has impacted Jewish families, friends, and the wider community who stand with them.
‘Our priority is ensuring that everyone can come together to honour the victims and support one another without fear.
Police snipers are in place ahead of tonight’s 6.47pm vigil at Bondi
Police snipers are on top of Hotel Bondi
After comforting hundreds at Bondi Pavilion in the days since the public shooting, Rabbi Eli Feldman urged the nation to embrace the tenets of Hanukkah to honour those killed during celebrations for the Jewish festival.
His synagogue in inner-city Sydney was one of several around the country targeted in January by an arsonist attempting to start a fire and graffiti.
‘Last Sunday night, messages of darkness descended here on the beach, to try to extinguish the light for the Jewish people trying to kindle the Hanukkah lights,’ he told ABC TV on Sunday.
‘The way that we’re going to combat that a week later here at the beach … (is) all are invited to come and light the eighth candle here and show that light will always overcome darkness.’
Governor-General Sam Mostyn said the day of reflection on Sunday should mark the beginning of a ‘national project’ of healing through ‘a million acts of kindness.’
‘The rest of the world knows that we are a shining light of peace, where everyone belongs. It’s on all of us,’ she told a National Council of Jewish Women Australia-organised event at Bondi.
One week to the minute since two gunmen opened fire, Australians were called on to remember the victims as flags were placed at half mast and monuments lit yellow in tribute.
Those killed included 10-year-old Matilda, elderly Holocaust survivors Alexander Kleytman and Marika Pogany, and rabbis Yaakov Levitan and Eli Schlanger.
Police snipers are patrolling the Bondi area tonight
NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said the extra security measures did not reflect a heightened security alert
Thousands of flowers and tributes have been laid at Bondi Pavilion since the nearby shootings, although the local council will begin removing the material on Monday.
People were asked to light a candle and place it in their front window before observing a minute’s silence at 6.47pm AEDT.
‘(It’s) 60 seconds carved out from the noise of daily life, dedicated to the 15 Australians who should be with us today,’ Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.
He will visit the pavilion for the first time since the day after the massacre amid backlash from the Jewish community for his government’s perceived lack of action over antisemitic incidents before the attack.
Alex Ryvchin, co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said the prime minister was doing the right thing by attending the vigil but could expect a mixed response.
NSW Premier Chris Minns earlier defended criticisms that hate speech laws set to be rushed through the state parliament before Christmas were draconian in their scope.
The laws will ban slogans such as ‘globalise the intifada’, which Mr Minns argued planted seeds of hate that graduated online and then into acts of violence.
The phrase has been associated with pro-Palestine protests during Israel’s two-year assault on Gaza.
‘In many cases, when you see violent imagery and hateful slogans and chants … it is unleashing forces that the organisers of the protests can’t control,’ Minns said.
The proposed laws were strongly condemned by the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils as exploiting ‘moments of grief… to justify authoritarian overreach’.
Minns on Monday will also move to ban hate symbols, including flags of al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic State (IS), from being displayed in the streets or at home.
Police said they found home-made IS flags in a vehicle belonging to one of the gunmen who opened fire on the crowd of Jewish faithful.
NSW has also announced a royal commission into the massacre, but the state’s federal Labor counterparts have resisted calls for a similar, national inquiry.
