Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff
“Within a day after two gunmen killed 15 people during a gathering for the Jewish holiday Hanukkah at Australia’s most famous beach, a very resilient country began to focus on ways to prevent a similar tragedy: Better gun regulations. A warm embrace of Jewish Australians. A sterner check on antisemitism. Tighter surveillance of potential terrorists. Yet a particular act of selfless heroism during the Dec. 14 mass shooting has offered up one more possible solution. A video shows Ahmed al-Ahmed, a Muslim shop owner in Sydney, tackling and disarming one of the alleged Bondi Beach shooters, also a Muslim. This bystander, by bursting bravely into action, may have saved countless lives even as he was shot. ‘God gave me strength’, he reportedly told a cousin from a hospital bed. His father, Mohamed Fateh al-Ahmed, perhaps best described the motives of his son, who gained Australian citizenship in 2022 after fleeing conflict in Syria.” (12/15/25)