Australia’s Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion heard on Wednesday that New South Wales police officers were outgunned during the terrorist attack on a Chanukah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Dec. 14, 2025, prompting plans for a new heavily armed police unit.
New South Wales Police Deputy Commissioner David Hudson told the inquiry that the state force will establish an Armed Response Command equipped with semiautomatic rifles in response to the attack, according to the Associated Press.
Father-and-son jihadists Sajid and Naveed Akram killed 15 people and wounded three police officers during the assault, which targeted the “Chanukah by the Sea” event. The attackers were armed with two shotguns and a hunting rifle. Sajid Akram was killed at the scene, while Naveed Akram remains in custody facing terrorism and murder charges.
Hudson said responding officers carried only pistols, leaving them at a major disadvantage.
“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 commission.
The commission also heard that “Operation Shelter,” a police initiative launched after the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, to address increased incidents of antisemitism and Islamophobia, had effectively been scaled back before the Bondi attack. Hudson said the operation existed “in name only” at the time of the massacre but was reinstated afterward and will remain in place until the Armed Response Command becomes operational, a process expected to take 18 months to two years.
Prior to the attack, rifles within the New South Wales Police Force were largely restricted to specialized paramilitary units, Hudson testified.
