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.

SYDNEY, Dec 16 (Reuters) – While a Sydney shopowner is being hailed as a hero after disarming one of the gunmen shooting at a Jewish holiday event at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, a couple and another man who died after physically confronting the attackers are also being remembered for their heroic efforts to save those around them.

The couple in their 60s, identified by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as Boris and Sofia Gurman, were filmed tackling one of the two gunmen as he exited his car, before being shot dead.

The dashcam footage, verified by Reuters, showed one shooter wrestling for a long-barrelled weapon with an older man in a lavender shirt and shorts, before both fall heavily to the ground behind a silver hatchback car.

The man in lavender, who is with a woman, gets up with the weapon as the footage moves on. Separate drone video shows the man and woman lying motionless next to the vehicle beside the pedestrian bridge where the gunmen were later shot by police.

“An elderly man by the roadside did not run away — instead, he charged straight toward the danger, using all his strength trying to wrestle away the gun and fighting to the death,” dashcam owner Jenny, who shared the footage with Reuters, wrote on Chinese social media RedNote.

“I can see from my camera that the elderly man was ultimately shot and collapsed. That moment broke my heart.”

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the couple were Russian-Jewish. Boris was a retired mechanic and Sofia worked for Australia Post.

“While nothing can lessen the pain of losing Boris and Sofia, we feel an overwhelming sense of pride in their bravery and selflessness,” the family said in a statement to the Herald.

The pair were among the 15 people killed in what is Australia’s worst mass shooting in nearly 30 years. Officials allege a father and son are the gunmen and say the attack is being investigated as an act of terrorism targeting the Jewish community. Australian police said it appeared the attack was inspired by Islamic State.

Another man, Reuven Morrison, 62, was also shot dead after trying to halt the bloodshed, his daughter Sheina Gutnick told CBS News in a report published on Monday.

“He had jumped the second the shooting started. He managed to throw bricks. He was screaming at the terrorist and protecting his community,” she said. “If there is one way for him to go on this earth it would be fighting a terrorist.”

Morrison’s actions are visible in several videos posted on social media. After 43-year-old Ahmed al Ahmed, a Muslim father-of-two, charged one of the gunmen from behind and disarmed him, a man is seen chasing the attacker and hurling something at him. Morrison, who originally came from the USSR, was later shot and killed, according to Gutnick.

Ahmed is recovering in hospital after being shot and donations to support him have topped A$2.4 million ($1.6 million).

($1 = 1.5083 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Stella Qiu in Sydney and Lucy Craymer in Wellington; Editing by Lincoln Feast)