Australian police plan to form a heavily armed team in response to Bondi Beach massacre

News

Australian police plan to form a heavily armed team in response to Bondi Beach massacre

2026-05-27 17:13 Last Updated At：17:20

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — An Australian state police force has worked to form a heavily armed rapid response team since gunmen killed 15 people and wounded three police officers armed only with handguns at a Sydney Hanukkah celebration in December, a government inquiry heard Wednesday.

Testifying before the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, which is investigating the spread of antisemitism in Australia ahead of the Dec. 14 attack at Bondi Beach, New South Wales Police Deputy Commissioner David Hudson described a firepower imbalance.

The police force has responded with a plan to establish an Armed Response Command, equipped with semiautomatic rifles, and by reviving a priority-resourced operation that focused on antisemitic crimes and retaliations against Muslim targets, Hudson said.

Rifles within the force have been largely restricted to two specialized paramilitary squads, he said.

Father and son Sajid and Naveed Akram allegedly opened fire with two shotguns and a hunting rifle on hundreds of people celebrating Hanukkah in a beachside park. Only four police officers were present. They were armed with Glock pistols, which are only accurate for a short distance.

“On Dec. 14, our police officers were placed at significant risk being in a gunfight armed with 9 mm Glocks against long arms,” Hudson told the inquiry.

Within five minutes of the Akrams allegedly opening fire, 11 police officers had reached the scene. Three of those officers were among the dozens wounded in the massacre. Police shot the father dead and apprehended the wounded son less than eight minutes after the first shot was fired, the inquiry heard Monday.

In response to the shooting, police also revived Operation Shelter, which had been established in response to escalating community tensions days after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel Hudson said.

Hudson had established Operation Shelter as a “high visibility” proactive police operation to ensure there was no escalation of street violence in Sydney. At its peak, 200 officers had been assigned daily to the operation, which had authority to bring in outside staff from other duties as required.

Operation Shelter existed “in name only” when the Bondi massacre occurred, Hudson said Wednesday, explaining that the program was quickly revived after the shooting and elevated to an “active policing resource” that will remain until the armed response squad is fully operational in the next 18 months to two years.

WHO chief lands in Congo, saying Ebola outbreak 'can be stopped'

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — The head of the World Health Organization has arrived in Congo's capital, Kinshasa, to support efforts against an outbreak of a rare type of Ebola virus, where he called on the international health body to work with the local community to stop the spread.

The World Health Organization said Friday authorities have reported 125 confirmed cases in Congo, including 17 confirmed deaths. Additionally, there are 906 suspected cases and 223 suspected deaths.

Neighboring Uganda has confirmed nine cases and one death, the Ugandan ministry of health said Friday.

“To come here is to really show to the community that they’re not alone," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters at the airport in Kinshasa late Thursday.

“Pushing orders from my comfortable office in Geneva is easy, but I’m asking my colleagues to work with the community and I am asking communities to protect themselves,” he added.

The outbreak “can be stopped,” he said, but is “very complex.”

Challenges like the high number of people displaced by armed conflict in the region and food insecurity are complicating efforts, Tedros said. Aid supplies reached the heart of the outbreak this week but medical personnel continue to struggle with a lack of equipment, a distrustful population and armed groups in the volatile region.

Containment has been particularly difficult because the disease likely spread for weeks before it was first identified in mid-May.

The outbreak continues to spread faster than the response, despite health facilities becoming more organized and more equipment arriving.

The Bundibugyo virus, the current kind of Ebola, has no approved treatment or vaccine.

Anaïs Legand, a researcher in the WHO emergencies program, cited a patient discharged Wednesday as a “positive development” since it is the only documented recovery of a confirmed Ebola patient during the current outbreak.

Legand said at a U.N. briefing in Geneva Friday that five other infected people were also likely to recover.

The average fatality rate of Bundibugyo virus is around 30 to 50%, she said.

Medical aid donated by the European Union arrived in Ituri, the heart of Congo’s Ebola outbreak, on Thursday, with more shipments expected over the next eight days. The U.S. announced $80 million in additional aid on the same day, bringing its total commitment to more than $112 million.

At Rwampara Hospital, where a treatment center has been established, the response looks far more organized than in previous days, with more staff deployed, stronger prevention measures and teams in protective gear visible across units — though patients continue to arrive around the clock, according to an AP reporter in Bunia, the provincial capital.

The same progress was noted at Bunia General Hospital, where new medical kits, support personnel and emergency funding appear to be reinvigorating operations.

David Munkley, the eastern Congo director of World Vision, said Friday more equipment and supplies are still needed.

“We know what is required in terms of personal protective equipment, in terms of supporting communities and ensuring proper sanitation hygiene practices,” Munkley told the AP. “So the moment of truth is, are we going to fund it or not?”

Congo’s Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba told reporters Thursday night they are exploring more drugs “that can help save even more lives, because ... this disease initially presents just like any other infectious disease we’re familiar with: dizziness, headache, fever, vomiting and diarrhea.”

The continent's top public health body will “ensure that we have a vaccine and a treatment for Bundibugyo" by the end of the year, Africa CDC chief Jean Kaseya said Thursday.

Dangers faced by health workers have been heightened by anger among residents over the stringent medical protocols for handling the victims' bodies, which clash with local burial rites. Residents have launched at least three attacks against health centers.

Attacks in Ituri by the Allied Democratic Force, a rebel group allied with the Islamic State group, and a coalition of ethnic militias have also hindered the response.

The illness also has been reported in the Congolese provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu, south of Ituri, where the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group controls many key cities, including Goma and Bukavu. The rebels have reported two cases.

After Uganda closed its border with Congo, the WHO chief said Thursday he discourages countries from imposing travel bans. “There are ways to manage workers and to manage cases without having a strong, restricted travel ban,” Tedros said.

The Trump administration last week announced a temporary ban on the entry of people without U.S. passports who have visited Congo, Uganda or South Sudan in the past 21 days. It said Wednesday it plans to send Americans who are exposed to Ebola to a new facility in Kenya instead of flying them to the U.S.

——

Kabumba reported from Bunia, Congo, and Banchereau from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva and Monika Pronczuk in Dakar contributed to this report.