New South Wales Premier Chris Minns, right, and Kellie Sloane, leader of the opposition, the New South Wales Liberal Party, lay wreaths at a tribute for shooting victims outside the Bondi Pavilion at Sydney's Bondi Beach on December 15, 2025, a day after a shooting that killed at least 16 people. Photo: VCG

Multiple world leaders voiced condemnation on Sunday and Monday over a mass shooting in Australia - the worst in almost 30 years - amid the country's mourning of the victims and plans for tougher gun laws. 

A father and son duo who killed 15 people at a Jewish celebration at Sydney's Bondi Beach had possible links to the Islamic State group, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation said on Monday.  The father, a 50-year-old, was killed at the scene, taking the number of dead to 16, while his 24-year-old son was in critical condition in hospital, police said at a press conference on Monday, according to the media report. 

During his visit to the scene on Monday morning, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said that flags would fly at half-mast across the country to mourn the victims of the shooting.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi sent a message of condolences to Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong over the incident, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said on Monday at a press briefing. "China mourns for the victims and expresses sympathies to the bereaved families and the injured," Guo said, when asked to comment on the incident. 

Consulate-General of China in Sydney stated Monday that no reports of Chinese citizens killed or injured in Australian shooting so far. The Consulate-General urges Chinese citizens in the local area to avoid traveling to the incident site.

The incident occurred at around 6:40 pm local time at the renowned attraction in Bondi Beach, where over 1,000 people had gathered to celebrate the first day of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, according to Xinhua News Agency. 

Per BBC News, the victims include a 10-year-old girl, a British-born rabbi, a retired police officer, and a Holocaust survivor. 

The deceased range in age from 10 to 87 years old.

Another 40 people were being treated in hospital for their injuries as of Monday morning, five of whom were in critical condition.

Jin, a Chinese travel content creator living in Sydney who goes by Jin10Apr on lifestyle-sharing social media platform Xiaohongshu, or RedNote, was filming video footage at Bondi Beach on sunny Sunday afternoon, planning to share it on his social media platforms. He told the Global Times on Monday that Bondi Beach is a famous tourist attraction, and is a "must-see spot for anyone traveling to Sydney." 

In a video he recorded and uploaded showing the scene at the beach, crowds of people were seen sunbathing on the sand and swimming in the sea. "It was the weekend, so the beach was packed with both locals and tourists," he said.

When the shooting first broke out, Jin thought the loud bangs were fireworks. "But I suddenly realized people were stampeding away from the direction of the noise, screaming in terror," he recalled. 

He told the Global Times the gunfire lasted for more than 10 minutes. "My only thought at that moment was to live - my legs almost collapsed from running. I was also terrified that a gunman might suddenly emerge from the fleeing crowd, or that a stampede might break out amid the panic," he added. 

Multiple global leaders have voiced condemnation over the mass shooting.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on X he was "horrified" by the "heinous deadly attack." "My heart is with the Jewish community worldwide," he said.

US President Donald Trump said during a Christmas celebration at the White House that the attack in Bondi was "terrible" and "purely antisemitic", ABC reported.

According to media reports, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have also condemned the attack, and sent condolences to the affected. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday praised Ahmed al-Ahmed, a bystander who has tackled and disarmed one of the gunmen during the Bondi Beach attack, according to Euronews.

Push for tougher gun laws

Describing the deadly shooting as a "pure evil" act of antisemitism, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Monday said flags would fly at half-mast to honor the lives lost in the attack, Australia's ABC News reported Monday.

Albanese said that Australia would do whatever is necessary to stamp out antisemitism.

The two gunmen were identified by local media as 50-year-old Sajid Akram and his 24-year-old son Naveed Akram. The father arrived in Australia on a student visa in 1998. He had held a firearms license since 2015 for recreational hunting and had six registered weapons, per BBC and Reuters reports.  

The son, an Australian-born citizen, first came to authorities' attention in October 2019, but had not been deemed an immediate threat, security officials said.

Australian broadcaster ABC reported that counter-terrorism police believe the gunmen had pledged allegiance to the IS terrorist group. Two Islamic State flags were found in the gunmen's vehicle, Reuters reported.

On Monday morning, officers from NSW Police and the Australian Federal Police were conducting a major operation at Akram's residence in Sydney's southwest suburbs, as well as at a short-term rental in the city's west where the two men had been staying. The investigation into the motives behind the attack is still ongoing, according to Xinhua.

The shooting has raised questions about whether Australia's gun laws, already among the toughest in the world, remain fit for purpose.

Albanese said he would ask Cabinet to consider limits on the number of weapons permitted by a gun license, and how long a license should last. "People can be radicalized over a period of time. Licenses should not be in perpetuity," he told reporters, the Reuters report said. 

Australia's last most deadly mass shooting happened in 1996 in the island state of Tasmania, when 35 people were killed at Port Arthur, which prompted fundamental changes to Australia's gun ownership laws, according to Xinhua.

"Australia's gun laws can be regarded as one of the strictest among Western countries. However, the occurrence of such a tragedy indicates that the key to the problem is not the absence of laws, but whether the dynamic supervision of legal gun owners is sufficiently detailed and timely," Chen Hong, director of the Australian Studies Centre of East China Normal University, told the Global Times on Monday.

The key reality is that if a perpetrator can obtain and store firearms and ammunition through legal channels, even the most rigorous initial screening can be undermined over time by changes in the individual's risk profile during long-term ownership, Chen noted. 

"Furthermore, as a federal country, Australia has variations across states in the frequency of license reviews, information sharing, inspection of firearm storage, and enforcement rigor. This incident also exposed vulnerabilities in the cross-departmental early warning systems," the expert said.