Jewish families describe the chaos of briefly losing young children during the December 14, 2025, Bondi Beach Hanukkah shooting, which left at least 15 dead and dozens injured. In a separate ABC interview, the daughter of an 86‑year‑old Holocaust survivor wounded in the attack sharply criticized Australia’s leaders and media over what she sees as an inadequate response to rising antisemitism since October 7, 2023.
Following accounts from other witnesses, new testimonies from Jewish families underscore the panic during the Bondi Beach shooting at the "Chanukah by the Sea" event.
According to an interview reported by The Daily Wire, Wayne and Vanessa Miller, parents to four‑year‑old Capri and three‑year‑old Gigi, were on the foreshore with their daughters when gunfire erupted. Wayne said that Capri asked for a balloon, so he walked with her to a balloon stand positioned on the western side of the event, close to where one of the gunmen was firing from a nearby bridge. He recalled feeling something hit his face "like a ricochet" before realizing shots were being fired, then picking Capri up and diving under a table to shield her while a man lying just two arm lengths away appeared to have been shot.
Wayne recounted that amid ongoing gunfire and people shouting "Get down! Get back!" Vanessa phoned him and asked if he had the children. He told her he only had Capri, and the couple realized they did not know where Gigi was. Wayne said he could not leave his position to search because of continuing shots. After a pause in the initial burst of shooting, he took Capri and ran to a nearby car park where Vanessa had taken shelter, handed Capri to her, and then returned toward the scene to look for Gigi.
He told the interviewer that there was "blood, and people lying on the floor, and dead bodies" as he searched. Gigi, he said, was wearing a rainbow skirt and pink top. Wayne said he eventually saw his daughter under "this hero of a person"—a woman who had pulled Gigi underneath her to protect her. Gigi was covered in blood from a woman nearby who had been shot in the head. Wayne described finding Gigi as "the best moment of my life."
Vanessa, speaking in the same interview, said that once she realized Gigi was missing she was "standing around screaming, 'Where are you? Where’s my family? Where are my girls?'" She alleged that two police officers were sheltering behind a car, one of them bleeding from a head wound, and that they held her back when she tried to grab one of their firearms as the attack continued. Vanessa also credited a pregnant woman with saving their three‑year‑old by pulling Gigi to safety as the child ran around crying "Mummy, Daddy" while others lay on the ground.
The Millers said the trauma has lingered for their children. Wayne recounted that when he later put Capri to bed, she told him that while they were under the table she had wet herself because she "didn’t want to go to the toilet and get dead." Speaking about the wider climate, he said, "In Australia, we’re such targets; the government’s not doing much about it," and called the position in which he believes the Jewish community has been left "appalling," according to The Daily Wire.
In a separate account carried by The Daily Wire, the daughter of an 86‑year‑old Holocaust survivor who was injured in the Bondi Beach attack spoke to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s News Breakfast program. She said her father, who survived antisemitism in the former Soviet Union, moved his family to Australia so they would not endure the same experiences and that they had largely avoided such hatred "until October 7, 2023."
Addressing Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong, she asked, "Is this what you wanted? Is this enough now? Will you listen to us? Albanese, Wong, will you listen to us? Will you actually do something?" She went on to criticize what she described as biased coverage by ABC and other mainstream outlets, arguing that the media had contributed to "a massive change in Australia" toward Jewish people since the Hamas attacks on Israel and the subsequent war.
She told the program that she now wears her Magen David, or Star of David, openly as an expression of identity in the face of that hostility: "I’m not a religious Jewish girl but since October 7, since all the hatred that’s been thrown at us, I’ve started to wear my Magen David because I’m Jewish and if you have something to say, you can say it to me."
Her comments came as Jewish organizations and community leaders have voiced alarm about a documented rise in antisemitic incidents in Australia since October 7, 2023, and as national and state authorities have condemned the Bondi Beach attack as an antisemitic act of terror targeting a Hanukkah celebration.
