[AP Photo]
Hundreds of mourners bearing bright bouquets and clutching each other in grief gathered at a funeral in Sydney yesterday for a 10-year-old girl who was gunned down in an antisemitic massacre during a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach.
Matilda, whose last name is being withheld at the request of her family, was enjoying a petting zoo at the festivities on Sunday just before she was killed along with 14 other people in a mass shooting targeting Jews. The suspects, a father and son, were inspired by the Islamic State group, Australian authorities have said.
Beaming photos of Matilda have become a focal point for Australia’s grief at one of the worst hate-fueled attacks ever committed in the country. The massacre has prompted a national reckoning about antisemitism and questions about whether the country’s leaders took seriously enough the threat to Australian Jews.
Matilda’s parents, who arrived in Australia from Ukraine, “moved away from war-torn Eastern Europe to come here for a good life,” Rabbi Dovid Slavin told The Associated Press as he entered the service.
“They did something that a parent is OK to do, take their child to a family event at Bondi beach,” he added. “If it ended this way, it’s something for collective responsibility for every adult in this country.”
Speaking to reporters in Australia’s capital Canberra at the same Matilda’s service began, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese unveiled a tranche of legislative plans he said would curb radicalization and hate.
Among his proposals were measures to broaden the definition of hate speech offenses for preachers and leaders who promote violence, to bolster punishments for such crimes, to designate some groups as hateful, and to allow judges to consider hate as an aggravating factor in cases of online threats and harassment.
Officials would have greater powers to reject or cancel visas “for those who spread hate and division in this country, or would do so if they were allowed to come here,” Albanese added. He didn’t suggest a timeline for the reforms, citing their legal complexity.
“I of course acknowledge that more could have been done and I accept my responsibility for the part in that as prime minister of Australia,” Albanese said yesterday. “But what I also do is accept my responsibility to lead the nation and unite the nation.”
Meanwhile, investigators continued to probe the suspected gunmen’s links in Australia and their travel to the Philippines before the attack, said Krissy Barrett, the country’s police chief. Authorities earlier divulged that the younger shooting suspect, Naveed Akram, 24, was investigated for six months by Australia’s security services in 2019.
The older shooter, Sajid Akram, 50, who was shot dead on Sunday, had amassed the guns used in the massacre legally. His gun license was granted in 2023, after his son came to the attention of authorities.
Philippine National Security Adviser Eduardo Año told The Associated Press yesterday that there was no indication that the two received any training for the attack in the Philippines. He said that the suspected gunmen had stayed in a budget hotel in downtown Davao city for the whole of their visit in November. MDT/AP
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