Police say Jewish community targeted in Sydney terror attack

At least 11 people were killed by gunmen who targeted a Jewish celebration at Bondi Beach in Sydney on Sunday, in what authorities called a terrorist attack. One of the shooters was also killed, police said.

Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon of the New South Wales Police Force said Sunday evening that officers had found what they believed to be several improvised explosive devices in a nearby vehicle linked to the suspect who was killed. Bomb disposal units were at the scene, he said.

The rare mass shooting sent crowds scattering on Australia's best-known beach. Emergency workers were seen transporting a person on a stretcher after the shooting. Video from the scene aired by Australian Broadcasting Corp., the public broadcaster, showed police officers fanning out in an outdoor area where a gun was lying near a tree.

"This is a targeted attack on Jewish Australians on the first day of Hanukkah, which should be a day of joy," Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia said. He added: "An attack on Jewish Australians is an attack on every Australian."

The ABC quoted police as saying Sunday night that the situation had been "neutralized" and that there were no active shooters unaccounted for.

Robert Gregory, chief executive of the Australian Jewish Association, said members of the community told him the shooting had targeted a Chabad event at the beach to observe the Hanukkah holiday.

The shooting Sunday is the latest in a series of antisemitic attacks in Australia that intensified last year. The violence has unnerved many in the country, which has the world's highest concentration of Holocaust survivors after Israel. Arsonists last year targeted a Jewish business and a synagogue, prompting calls for greater accountability.

Some leaders and organizations from the Jewish community said Sunday that those calls had not been heeded.

Yad Vashem, Israel's official Holocaust memorial center, had raised concerns about the "dangerous rise" of antisemitism in Australia in personal meetings with the premiers of Victoria and New South Wales.

Here's what we know:

-- Initial reports: Multiple people called police around 6:45 p.m. to report that multiple people had been shot. The gunmen emerged from a small silver hatchback parked by a bridge near the beach and begun firing into the crowd celebrating Hanukkah, according to a witness who was said he was walking a few dozen yards from the shooters.

-- Hanukkah celebration: Witnesses have said the gunmen were targeting the celebration marking the first night of Hannukah. They weren't shooting at everyone, said the witness, a teenager who asked not to be named for safety reasons.

-- Rare shooting: Minutes after the shooting, the New South Wales police issued an alert asking people to stay away from the beach. Bondi, on Sydney's east coast, is over 3,000 feet long. Shootings are rare in Australia, a country with one of the lowest gun-related death rates in the developed world.