Ahmed al-Ahmed, the man who heroically tackled and disarmed one of the shooters in the Bondi Beach massacre earlier this month, is speaking out in his first interview since the deadly attack in Australia.

In an interview with CBS News, al-Ahmed — a Syrian Australian shop owner and Muslim father of two — recounted people screaming for help as two gunmen opened fire in a targeted attack on Jewish people during a Hanukkah celebration at the beach.

“My soul and all my — everything in my organs, in my body, in my brain, asked me to go … to save innocent lives,” al-Ahmed told “CBS Mornings.”

The shooting left 15 dead, including a 10-year-old child and a Holocaust survivor, and left dozens injured.

One suspect, Sajid Akram, was killed by police. The other suspect, his son Naveed Akram, has been charged with murder and terrorism.

Viral video of al-Ahmed’s act shows him creeping toward the elder Akram from behind parked cars before tackling him and swiping the gun away from his hands following a struggle. Al-Ahmed himself was shot multiple times. He’s since been released from the hospital, but said he has lost the use of his left hand.

Al-Ahmed said he “didn’t worry about anything” other than to take the gun away from Akram and prevent him from killing more people.

“I jumped in his back, hit him … hold him with my right hand, ‘Drop your gun, stop doing what you’re doing,’” recounted al-Ahmed, who noted that he knows he saved lots of people, but feels “sorry for the lost.”

He sent a message to the world: “Stop the terrorism and stop the hate.”

“Feel and love with all humanity; whatever religion, we are human beings,” he said.

SYDNEY (AP) — A suspected gunman in Sydney’s Bondi Beach massacre was charged with 59 offenses including 15 charges of murder on Wednesday, as hundreds of mourners gathered in Sydney to begin funerals for the victims.

Two shooters slaughtered 15 people on Sunday in an antisemitic mass shooting targeting Jews celebrating Hanukkah at Bondi Beach, and more than 20 other people are still being treated in hospitals. All of those killed by the gunmen who have been identified so far were Jewish.

Police said that Naveed Akram, the 24-year-old suspected shooter, was charged on Wednesday after waking from a coma in a Sydney hospital, where he has been since police shot him and his gunman father at Bondi. His 50-year-old father Sajid Akram died at the scene.

The charges include one count of murder for each fatality and one count of committing a terrorist act.

Akram was also charged with 40 counts of causing harm with intent to murder in relation to the wounded and with placing an explosive near a building with intent to cause harm.

Police said the Akrams’ car, which was found at the crime scene, contained improvised explosive devices.

Funerals began as a country reeling from its deadliest hate-fueled massacre of modern times turned to searching questions, growing in volume since the attack, about how it was able to happen. As investigations unfold, Australia faces a social and political reckoning about antisemitism, gun control and whether police protections for Jews at events such as Sunday’s were sufficient for the threats they faced.

First, however, was a day of anguish for families from Sydney’s close-knit Jewish community who gathered, one after another, to begin to bury their dead. The victims of the attack ranged in age from a 10-year-old girl to an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor.

The first farewelled was Eli Schlanger, 41, a husband and father of five who served as the assistant rabbi at Chabad-Lubavitch of Bondi and organized Sunday’s Chanukah by the Sea event where the attack unfolded. The London-born Schlanger also served as chaplain in prisons across New South Wales state and in a Sydney hospital.

“After what happened, my biggest regret was — apart from, obviously, the obvious – 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 that he does and how proud we are of him,” said Schlanger’s father-in-law, Rabbi Yehoram Ulman, who sometimes spoke through tears.

“I hope he knew that. I’m sure he knew it,” Ulman said. “But I think it should’ve been said more often.”

Outside the funeral, not far from the site of the attack, the mood was hushed and grim, with a heavy police presence. Jews are usually buried within 24 hours from their deaths, but funerals have been delayed by coronial investigations.

One mourner, Dmitry Chlafma, said as he left the service that Schlanger was his longtime rabbi.

“You can tell by the amount of people that are here how much he meant to the community,” Chlafma said. “He was warm, happy, generous, one of a kind.”

Among others killed were Boris and Sofia Gurman, a husband and wife aged in their 60s who were fatally shot as they tried to disarm one of the gunmen when he got out of his car to begin the attack. Another Jewish man in his 60s, Reuven Morrison, was gunned down by one shooter while he threw bricks at the other, his daughter said.

Many children attended the Hanukkah event, which featured face painting, treats and a petting zoo. The youngest killed was Matilda, 10, whose parents urged attendees at a vigil on Tuesday night to remember her name.

“It stays here,” said Matilda’s mother, who identified herself only as Valentyna, pressing her hand over her heart. “It just stays here and here.”

Authorities believe that the shooting was “a terrorist attack inspired by Islamic State,” Australia’s federal police commissioner Krissy Barrett said Wednesday.

The authorities have said that Naveed Akram came to the attention of the security services in 2019 but have supplied little detail of their previous investigations. Now authorities will probe what was known about the men.

That includes examining a trip the suspects made to the Philippines in November. The Philippines Bureau of Immigration confirmed Tuesday that the two suspected shooters traveled to the country from Nov. 1 to Nov. 28, giving the city of Davao as their final destination.

Groups of Muslim separatist militants, including Abu Sayyaf in the southern Philippines, once expressed support for IS and have hosted small numbers of foreign militants from Asia, the Middle East and Europe in the past. Philippine military and police officials say there has been no recent indication of any foreign militants in the country’s south.

The younger suspect was Australian-born. Indian police on Tuesday said the older suspect was originally from the southern city of Hyderabad, migrated to Australia in 1998 and held an Indian passport.

The news that the suspects were apparently inspired by the Islamic State group provoked more questions about whether Australia’s government had done enough to stem hate-fueled crimes, especially directed at Jews. In Sydney and Melbourne, where 85% of Australia’s Jewish population lives, a wave of antisemitic attacks has been recorded in the past year.

After Jewish leaders and survivors of Sunday’s attack lambasted the government for not heeding their warnings of violence, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese vowed Wednesday to take whatever government action was needed to stamp out antisemitism.

Albanese and the leaders of some Australian states have pledged to tighten the country’s already strict gun laws in what would be the most sweeping reforms since a shooter killed 35 people in Port Arthur, Tasmania, in 1996. Mass shootings in Australia have since been rare.

Albanese announced plans to further restrict access to guns, in part because it emerged the older suspect had amassed six weapons legally. Proposed measures include restricting gun ownership to Australian citizens and limiting the number of weapons a person can hold.

Meanwhile, Australians seeking ways to make sense of the horror settled on practical acts. Hours-long lines were reported at blood donation sites and at dawn on Wednesday, hundreds of swimmers formed a circle on the sand, where they held a minute’s silence. Then they ran into the sea.

Not far away, part of the beach remained behind police tape as the investigation into the massacre continued, shoes and towels abandoned as people fled still strewn across the sand.

One event that would return to Bondi was the Hanukkah celebration the gunmen targeted, which has run for 31 years, Ulman said. It would be in defiance of the attackers’ wish to make people feel like it was dangerous to live as Jews, he added.

“Eli lived and breathed this idea that we can never ever allow them not only to succeed, but anytime that they try something we become greater and stronger,” he said.

“We’re going to show the world that the Jewish people are unbeatable.”

Graham-McLay reported from Wellington and McGuirk from Melbourne.

The Australian man widely hailed as a hero for disarming one of the shooters in Sunday’s deadly attack at Sydney’s Bondi Beach reportedly said that he fully expected to get killed tackling the gunman from behind — and that he would do it again to save people’s lives.

Ahmed al-Ahmed, a father of two and store owner from Sutherland, was meeting his cousin for coffee in Bondi that day when two gunmen opened fire on a Hanukkah event at the famous beach. The cousin, Jozay Alkanj, told local outlets that the two hid behind cars when they saw “people were shooting very near to us.”

“He said, ‘I’m going to die — please see my family [and tell them] that I went down to save people’s lives,’” Alkanj said of his cousin, who then crept up behind one of the gunmen before tackling and disarming him. Al-Ahmed pointed the rifle at the shooter himself as the gunman ran to rejoin the other suspect, prompting the bystander to put the rifle down before he was shot twice in his arm.

“He doesn’t regret what he did. He said he’d do it again. But the pain has started to take a toll on him,” al-Ahmed’s lawyer Sam Issa told The Sydney Morning Herald of his client, who is currently being treated at St. George Hospital. Issa described al-Ahmed as “riddled with bullets” and worries the 43-year-old will lose his arm.

Footage of al-Ahmed’s bravery quickly went viral, prompting a global outpouring of support that includes crowdfunding for his treatment and praise from leaders. New South Wales Premier Chris Minns posted a photo on social media of him speaking with al-Ahmed while sitting on the edge of his hospital bed.

“Ahmed is a real-life hero. Last night, his incredible bravery no doubt saved countless lives when he disarmed a terrorist at enormous personal risk,” Minns wrote on X. “It was an honour to spend time with him just now and to pass on the thanks of people across NSW.”

Mustafa al-Asaad, another of the bystander’s cousins, said al-Ahmed told him God gave him “power that he never gave me before” when tackling the gunman and risking his life. Both Jewish and Muslim rights groups have since praised al-Ahmed, who gained Australian citizenship in 2022 after escaping the civil war in Syria.

“When he did what he did, he wasn’t thinking about the background of the people he’s saving, the people dying in the street,” the bystander’s father, Mohamed Fateh al-Ahmed, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “He doesn’t discriminate between one nationality and another. Especially here in Australia, there’s no difference between one citizen and another.”

Authorities said the Sunday shooting killed at least 16 people, whose ages range from 10 years old to 82. Police said they killed one gunman, 50-year-old Sajid Akram, at the scene and are monitoring the second suspect, his 24-year-old son Naveed Akram, while he gets treated at the hospital for critical injuries.

“We have seen Australians today run towards danger in order to help others,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said of al-Ahmed at a press conference. “These Australians are heroes and their bravery has saved lives.”

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — A mass shooting carried out Saturday by multiple suspects in an unlicensed bar near the South African capital left at least 12 people dead, police said. The victims included three children aged 3, 12 and 16.

Another 13 people were wounded and being treated in the hospital. Police didn’t give details of the ages of those who were injured or their conditions.

Police adjusted the death toll after they said a 12th victim died in the hospital.

The shooting happened at a bar inside a hostel in the Saulsville township west of the administrative capital of Pretoria in the early hours of Saturday. Ten of the victims died at the scene and two others died at the hospital, police said.

The children killed were a 3-year-old boy, a 12-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl. Police said they were searching for three male suspects.

“We are told that at least three unknown gunmen entered this hostel where a group of people were drinking and they started randomly shooting,” police spokesperson Brig. Athlenda Mathe told national broadcaster SABC. She said the motive for the killings was not clear. The shootings happened at around 4.15 a.m., she said, but police were only alerted at 6 a.m.

South Africa has one of the highest homicide rates in the world and recorded more than 26,000 homicides in 2024 — an average of more than 70 a day. Firearms are by far the leading cause of death in homicides.

The country of 62 million people has relatively strict gun ownership laws, but many killings are committed with illegal guns, authorities say.

There have been several mass shootings at bars — sometimes called shebeens or taverns in South Africa — in recent years, including one that killed 16 people in the Johannesburg township of Soweto in 2022. On the same day, four people were killed in a mass shooting at a bar in another province.

Mathe said that mass shootings at unlicensed bars were becoming a serious problem and police had shut down more than 11,000 illegal taverns between April and September this year and arrested more than 18,000 people for involvement in illegal liquor sales.

Recent mass killings in South Africa have not been confined to bars, however. Police said 18 people were killed, 15 of them women, in mass shootings minutes apart at two houses on the same road in a rural part of Eastern Cape province in September last year.

Seven men were arrested for those shootings and face multiple charges of murder, while police recovered three AK-style assault rifles they believe were used in the shootings.