Bondi Beach shooting LIVE updates: MP fires back after declaring he does NOT support tough new firearm laws – as hero who was shot four times after confronting alleged Bondi gunmen is identified

NSW Premier Chris Minns announced on Friday that he was proposing to cap how many firearms an individual can own to four, with strict exemptions for primary producers and sporting shooters.

But former Olympic sport shooter and federal MP for Hunter Dan Repacholi has said he will not support the proposed gun law changes because they fall under state jurisdiction, not federal.

‘I have received thousands of emails and calls in the last 24 hours about the proposed gun law changes that will go before the NSW Parliament on Monday,’ he said.

‘Firearms laws in Australia are primarily state-based, and the matters raised by Premier Minns are decisions for the NSW Parliament, not the Federal Parliament.

‘I won’t be voting on NSW firearms legislation.

‘Australia has strong gun laws and they save lives, but I do not support changes that unfairly target responsible, law-abiding firearms owners.

‘Measures that are blunt, symbolic, or simply designed to appease public anger without improving safety are not the answer.’

Repacholi said that, as a licensed firearms owner, he has gone through the same background checks, fit and proper person assessments, training, waiting periods and storage requirements.

‘I understand the responsibility that comes with lawful ownership, and I know that the overwhelming majority of firearms owners do the right thing,’ he said.

‘What happened at Bondi was horrific and should never have occurred. People are right to ask hard questions about whether it could have been prevented.

‘From what we are learning, the focus should be on information sharing, risk identification and enforcement of existing powers, not on arbitrary limits that penalise people who have done nothing wrong.

‘NSW Police already have significant powers to suspend or cancel licences where someone is not fit and proper.’

Minns’ measures include three specific steps towards tightening gun laws in NSW, with his government proposing to:

• Reclassify straight, pull, pump-action, button, lever release firearms into category C – limiting their access primarily to farmers and those in primary production
• Reduce magazine capacities for category A and B firearms to a maximum of five to 10 rounds from a current unlimited capacity;
• Introduce a complete ban on firearms that can use belt-fed magazines;
• And remove the New South Wales Civil and Administrative Tribunal review pathway once a decision has been made to revoke a licence.

The move follows similar federal legislation announced by Anthony Albanese this morning.

His government has launched a national buyback scheme to collect and destroy newly banned and illegal firearms from Australian gun owners.

The Prime Minister said the scheme will be the ‘largest buyback since the Howard government initiated one in 1996’.

During a press conference, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese supported American strikes on ISIS targets in Syria earlier this morning.

‘These strikes are a direct response to ISIS attacks on US defence personnel and the actions of the United States government are timely, swift and decisive, and we support those actions,’ he said.

‘ISIS has caused untold suffering around the world, both directly with the actions that they’ve taken, but also through their evil ideology that they spread.’

American forces struck over 70 targets in the country linked to ISIS, a US official told Fox News.

The move delivers on Donald Trump’s promise to retaliate for the killing of two US Army soldiers and an interpreter during a terrorist ambush in the country’s central region last weekend.

‘Because of ISIS’s vicious killing of brave American Patriots in Syria, whose beautiful souls I welcomed home to American soil earlier this week in a very dignified ceremony, I am hereby announcing that the United States is inflicting very serious retaliation,’ Trump said in a post on Truth Social Friday evening.

The bombardment is reportedly being carried out by US Airforce F-15E Strike Eagles and A-10C Thunderbolts alongside Army helicopters and artillery rocket systems.

Although officials said ‘numerous’ militants were killed, full casualty numbers were not provided on Friday evening American time.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has addressed the ‘deep pain and sorrow’ Australians have faced during and after the Bondi Beach attack.

‘The terrorist atrocity committed against innocent people, celebrating Hanukkah last week at Bondi Beach, targeting our cherished Jewish Australian community, has left our nation grieving and angry,’ he said.

‘This has been the darkest week in Australia’s recent history.’

Albanese told reporters he will reconvene the cabinet here in Canberra to continue the work that we are doing.

The prime minister added the massacre was an ‘ISIS-inspired attack here in Australia’.

‘That evil ideology represents something that should have no place in any consideration of humanity and who we are as global citizens, let alone as Australians,’ he said.

NSW Premier Chris Minns has announced the chant ‘globalise the intifada’ will be banned, among a series of new measures announced this afternoon.

The phrase has been used to call for international support of Palestinian resistance against Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territories.

‘We’ll also make it very clear that horrific recent events have shown that the chant “globalise the intifada” is hate speech and it encourages violence in our community,’ Minns said.

‘The chant will be banned alongside other hateful comments and statements made in our community.’

Earlier this week, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke introduced tougher laws on hate speech, but drew the line at banning the chantvia federal legislation.

Minns announced that he will change the state laws on face coverings worn in public.

Currently, police may only remove coverings ‘if they believe that the person’s identity or the person is in the midst of committing an indictable offence’.

‘We’ll change the law so it can be for any offence which is particularly important in the context of clamping down on hate speech so that police can be in a position to identify who is responsible for offensive conduct, hateful slogans or racist behaviour,’ he said.

The premier also supported calls for a royal commission into the Bondi terror attack.

‘Until we have a full and accurate picture of exactly how this happened, with a plan to ensure that it doesn’t happen again, then I don’t have answers to the people of New South Wales about what happened on Sunday,’ he said.

Seven men arrested at gunpoint in dramatic scenes have alleged that they were ‘tazed and beaten’ by officers during the ordeal.

The group, aged between 19 and 24, was stopped by heavily armed officers outside Westfield Liverpool in southwest Sydney on Thursday afternoon.

Police received reports the men, who had travelled from Melbourne, were possibly heading to Bondi. However, investigators have found no link to last Sunday’s massacre at the beach, which claimed 15 lives.

Some of the group were arrested in an alleyway and have claimed they were because there were no cameras they were ‘treated harsher’.

‘They opened the door tazed us we had our hands up, they pulled up next to us, smashed into the car in front of us, pulled guns on us said ‘put your hands up’,

‘We put our hands up, [they] tazed us even though we put our hands up, dragged us out the car, smashed us on the pavement, tazed us while we were on the pavement, handcuffed us then beat us.’

NSW Police declined to comment on the allegations. Investigations remain ongoing.

The group dubbed the so-called ‘Liverpool Seven’ were released on Friday afternoon without charge after they spent the night in custody.

Police found insufficient evidence to keep the men behind bars.

While the group were in custody, NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said the response to the information received about the men had been prompt.

‘Based on that information we had a risk that we did not believe that we could tolerate,’ he said.

‘We won’t accept violence, and what you saw was a very prompt and very firm response by the NSW Police.’

But one of the men has told media that the group had been racially profiled, adding that they had not done anything.

‘We didn’t do nothing wrong. My beliefs are we all live peacefully, we don’t give a f*** about no one,’ he said.

Another said: ‘[It was a] misunderstanding. We told [police] we were here for a holiday.’

Walter Mikac lost his wife Nanette and two young daughters Alannah and Madeline in the Port Arthur massacre.

Martin Bryant used a Cole AR-15 and battle rifle to shoot innocent victims on April 28, 1996, killing 35 people and injuring 23 at the popular tourist area in Tasmania.

He pleaded guilty to the attack and was given 35 life sentences without parole.

Australia reacted to the massacre by strengthening gun laws with the National Firearms Agreement.

In the wake of the horrific Bondi Beach shooting on Sunday, Mr Mikac, who founded The Alannah and Madeline Foundation to protect children from violence, has praised reforms to tighten gun laws, introduced by NSW Premier Chris Minns on Friday.

‘I am pleased that the Premier Minns has listened to the community and to our gun safety experts and reconfirmed community safety as the central tenet of our gun laws,’ Mr Mikac told news.com.au on Saturday.

‘The horrific terror attack at Bondi Beach last Sunday is a devastating reminder that strong gun laws must evolve to address new risks – not be weakened or undermined.

‘This attack was fuelled by hate, but guns allowed that hate to be weaponised as terror.

‘I extend my deepest condolences to the victims and their families and loved ones.

‘I stand in love and solidarity with Australia’s Jewish community, the people of NSW, and with all Australians in the wake of this unspeakable act of violence and terror.

‘My heart aches for the many lives lost, including the life of beautiful 10-year-old Matilda, and to their families, on what should have been a day of joy, community and celebration.’

Allegra Spender, the federal member for Wentworth, has been confronted by a furious local at the flower memorial at Bondi.

‘You have failed us, you have not done what you needed to do,’ the man screamed at Ms Spender in footage captured on Friday.

Spender nodded and replied, ‘Ok’, as the man continued.

‘It has been a tragedy for our community,’ he said.

‘Shame on you. Blood on your hands.’

Spender was also targeted by hecklers at Rabbi Eli Schlanger’s funeral in Bondi Beach on Wednesday.

‘You’re a disgrace!’ a man yelled as she walked inside.

‘You should not be here, go away.’

Lifesavers haved lined the shoreline at Bondi Beach to observe three minutes for silence for the victims of the Bondi Beach massacre.

It comes less than 24 hours after over 700 people joined a paddle out at the iconic beach to pay respects to the lives lost.

“The emotions are extremely raw for everyone and it’s very hard,” Waverley Council lifeguard services co-ordinator Daniel McLaughlin told AAP.

“We do a lot of training knowing these emotions are the normal reaction to a horrific, traumatic event.

“But that doesn’t make it easy.”

Incredible footage has emerged of 30-year-old Israeli Gefen Bitton helping Ahmed Al-Ahmed after he rushed one of the alleged gunmen and wrestled away his firearm.

Video from the scene of the Bondi Beach attack showed him clad in a red shirt and trousers sprinting across the grass, coming to the aid of Mr Al-Ahmed.

‘He knew exactly what he was doing, he was just set on a mission to help others,’ one of Bitton’s friends, Matthew Volpatti, told 9News.

Mr Bitton was shot three times and is in critical condition at St Vincent’s Hospital.

He has undergone five rounds of surgery since Sunday, with Mr Volpatti saying he has a ‘long road to recovery’.

‘He’s just a young man come from overseas to have a better life in Australia, and he’s gonna need everyone’s support,’ he said.

Mr Bitton’s family said on a fundraising page that, during the attack, they didn’t know his whereabouts or condition.

It was only two days later, when his father flew to Sydney from Israel, that they confirmed where Mr Bitton was thanks to the footage, in which they spotted his red shirt.

Seven men arrested at gunpoint in dramatic scenes have accused police of threatening to ‘shoot them in the head’, and ‘making up bulls**t’ as they were freed from custody.

The group was stopped by heavily armed officers outside Westfield Liverpool in southwest Sydney on Thursday afternoon.

Police received reports the men, who had travelled from Melbourne, were possibly heading to Bondi. However, investigators have found no link to last Sunday’s massacre at the beach, which claimed 15 lives.

The group dubbed the so-called ‘Liverpool Seven’ were released on Friday afternoon without charge after they spent the night in custody.

Police found insufficient evidence to keep the men behind bars.

One of the men claimed to the waiting media outside the station that the group had been racially profiled.

‘We didn’t do nothing wrong. My beliefs are we all live peacefully, we don’t give a f*** about no one,’ he said.

‘It was racism, what else could it be?

‘They’re [the police] making bulls**t up, they can only hold us for six hours then they changed the charge from a state charge to a Commonwealth charge so they could hold us for 24 hours.

‘They’re just making up bullshit so they could hold us longer and find something cause they’re f**ked up.’

The 15th victim the Bondi Beach tragedy has been identified as eastern suburbs grandmother Tania Tretiak.

It’s understood the 68-year-old from Randwick was attending the Hanukkah by the Sea celebration where she was fatally shot.

Other victims include Rabbi Yaakov Levitan, 39, French national Dan Elkayam, 27, Wellington Street synagogue assistant Reuven Morrison, Slovak citizen Marika Pogany, 82, retired NSW Police detective sergeant Peter Meagher, 61, Edith Brutman, Boris Gurman, 69, and his wife Sofia, 61, Soviet immigrant Boris Tetleroyd, Adam Smyth, 50, British-born Chabad Rabbi Eli Schlanger, 41,10-year-old Matilda, Alex Kleytman, 87 and Tibor Weitzen, 78.