As gunfire erupted at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Sunday evening, panic swept through a crowd gathered for a Hanukkah celebration. Amid the chaos, one man ran toward danger instead of away from it.
Ahmed Al Ahmed, a bystander in his 40s, lunged at a gunman, wrestled a rifle out of his hands, and stopped further bloodshed. Today, Ahmed is fighting for his life in hospital, badly injured but unrepentant about the choice he made.
“He doesn’t regret what he did,” Sam Issa, Ahmed’s migration lawyer, told The Age after visiting him at St George Hospital in Kogarah.
The attack began around 6:45 pm when two gunmen opened fire from a footbridge overlooking the beach. As people fled, Ahmed confronted one of the attackers directly. He managed to disarm him before being shot multiple times.
“He said he’d do it again,” Issa said. “But the pain has started to take a toll on him. He’s not well at all. He’s riddled with bullets. Our hero is struggling at the moment.”
Ahmed suffered severe injuries, mostly to his left arm. One bullet remains lodged in the back of his left shoulder blade and has not yet been removed. Doctors fear he may lose his arm.
“He’s a lot worse than expected,” Issa said. “When you think of a bullet in the arm, you don’t think of serious injuries, but he has lost a lot of blood.”
Born in Syria, Ahmed arrived in Australia in 2006 and became a citizen in 2022. His first citizenship application was rejected in 2019 over minor legal matters that were later dropped. Issa said he is now pushing for Ahmed’s elderly parents to be granted citizenship.
“This is an opportunity for the PM to do something good as a reward for his bravery,” Issa said.
According to Issa, Ahmed acted out of gratitude to the country he now calls home.
“Ahmed’s a humble man, he’s not interested in coverage, he just did what he was compelled to do as a human being on that day,” he said. “This is his way of conveying his gratitude for staying in Australia, for being granted citizenship.”
Ahmed’s parents, Fateh and Malaka Al Ahmed, said their son remains in “good spirits”.
“He said he thanks God that he was able to do this, to help innocent people and to save people from these monsters, these killers,” his father said. His mother said she could not stop crying when she learned what her son had done.
Ahmed, who has two young daughters aged five and six, had gone to Bondi for a coffee with his cousin, Jozay Alkanj, minutes before the attack.
“He said, ‘I’m going to die – please see my family and tell them that I went down to save people’s lives,’” Alkanj recalled.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and New South Wales Premier Chris Minns have praised Ahmed’s bravery. Public support has poured in, with more than 5,700 donors raising over $570,000 through a GoFundMe campaign, including a $100,000 contribution from US billionaire Bill Ackman.
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