Funerals begin for Bondi Beach terror attack victims as suspect charged after waking from coma

Hundreds of mourners gathered at a Sydney synagogue on Wednesday for the first of 15 funerals for those killed in Sunday’s terrorist attack about the Jewish people gathered to mark the start of Hanukkah on Australia’s Bondi Beach.

Rabbi Eli Schlanger, 41, assistant rabbi of the local Chabad-Lubavitch of Bondi, who had helped organize what began as a joyous event on the famous beach, was the first to be mourned on Wednesday.

The funeral took place just blocks from where he and other members of Sydney’s tight-knit Jewish community were shot dead.

After heavy criticism for what many saw as lax security during Sunday’s event, there was a heavy police presence around the synagogue on Wednesday. Officers were seen checking the identification of those heading to the funeral.

“He was an angel,” Rabbi Moshe Gutnick told News themezone as Schlanger’s body was transported. “He was kindness personified. Everything he did was aimed at doing good for people.”

“He was the heart and soul of the synagogue,” he added. “We’re all going to miss him terribly.”

Gutnick’s brother-in-law, Reuven Morrison, 62, was also among those killed Sunday while throwing rocks at one of the attackers, Morrison’s daughter told News themezone earlier this week.

Given how close the community is, Rabbi Gutnick said he would attend the funerals in the coming days, “not once, not twice, but many more times.”

“It’s just one after another, after another. It’s our October 7th,” he added, referring to the Hamas-led terrorist attack against Israel that sparked the war in Gaza two years ago.

Some family and friends could not contain their grief during the service for Schlanger on Wednesday, speaking through tears to pay tribute to the father of five, whose youngest son was born just seven weeks before his death.

“After what happened, my biggest regret was, aside from the obvious, that I could have done more to tell Eli more often how much we love him, how much I love him, how much we appreciate everything he does and how proud we are of him,” said his father-in-law, Rabbi Yehoram Ulman.

Investigations into the shooting. He continued, meanwhile.

He The suspects were father and son. who lived in the area, Sajid Akram, 50, and his son Naveed Akram, 24.

The elderly man, an Indian national who emigrated to Australia in 1998, died during the attack.

Naveed Akram, a native-born Australian citizen, was injured and left in a coma, but woke up Tuesday in a Sydney hospital and was quickly charged with 59 offences, including 15 counts of murder and one count of committing a terrorist act.