Couple caught in Bondi Beach Shooting panic as they lose young daughter: “I just knew she was dead.”

Wayne and Vanessa Miller were at a party in Australia’s Bondi Beach on Sunday with their two daughters, and said it was a happy, peaceful occasion to celebrate the start of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, until the couple finished Guns fire indiscriminately into the crowd.

“They were giving out donuts, and there was face painting and there was music, the kids were just having an absolute ball,” Wayne Miller told “CBS Mornings” host Gayle King on Monday.

Then, standing in line with Capri’s daughter, Wayne heard what he first saw was a firecracker. Then there was another crack, and he saw that guns were fired.

“My daughter was in front of me. I just turned around, I grabbed her, and I just saw the table and I just lay under my daughter Kariri,” he remembers. “I was lying on top of him just on top of him, just to protect him.”

“The bullets were just going, people were screaming and running and running. About two arms from me, ‘help, help!'” Miller recalls.

When the rounds were flying, his wife called him, and they soon realized that they had lost their little girl, Gigi, in the conflict.

“Vanessa calls me and says, ‘Do you have girls?’ I’m like, ‘I have a capri. I’m on Capri. Where is the gig? Gigi, you have Gigi. Where is the gig? ‘ He said, ‘No, I’m not with Gigi. Where is the gig? ‘ And at this stage, I thought, well, I need to look for him, and I stuck my head out from under the table to look in the field. And someone shouted, ‘There are guns!’ I just heard gunshots. And the boy said, come down, come down, come down. And I’m just thinking, ‘I just need to wait and protect my little capri.’ “

“It was scary,” Vanessa said. “I’m crying and the guns are going off and I’m trying to run.”

He said he even tried to grab a policeman’s gun at the same time, “to save many lives.”

“There is nothing to lose. I have to go, I have to go,” said my mother. “I felt hopeless. I looked, I was looking at this whole thing. I just see people on the ground. I said, ‘Gigi is dead.’ I just know he’s dead… He’s three years old, you know what three-year-olds are when the guns go on, but you think they’re going to be able to fall on the ground and they just do that you’re going to be able to scream. “

Wayne finally found his wife, gave his daughter Capri to Vanessa, and then set out to find Gigi.

“I went back to the field to look for Gigi, and I was looking through the blood and the bodies and I found my little girl lying under this sweet hero,” CBS News reported. “It was a special moment of my life to find him, and I took his number and said, ‘Jess, thank you. You are an absolutely brave superhero.

Vanessa Miller said Jesse continued to shoot video of the attackers as he lay over the scene, “and you could see the guy on the bridge, shooting at him.”

Miller said she would ask her husband if he thought the event was safe 15 minutes before the attack began, noting that there were very few security personnel in the area.

“There were only two police officers there,” Vanessa said. “I don’t feel safe. I said to him, ‘I don’t feel safe.'”

The couple have been highly critical of the Australian government, accusing officials of doing “nothing to protect Jewish communities” in a country facing rising antisemitism.

The police should have been more careful, given that it was a Hanukkah celebration and the threats of antisemitic attacks and attacks SkyrocalCockent In Australia since Oct. 7, 2023, Israel’s attack that sparked the war in Gaza, according to information from the High Council of Australia mpunum.

According to data compiled by the Council, antisemitic incidents in Australia remain at high levels – about five times the annual peak seen before Oct. 7, 2023.

Police authorities in New South Wales State say at least 15 people have been killed and 40 others remain in local hospitals following what Australian leaders have called an antisemitic attack.

This page The suspects were a father and son. They had six firearms – legally confiscated by the 50-year-old father – and were in possession of a self-propelled explosive device, all of which were allegedly aimed at a Jewish gathering, according to Australian authorities.

“It was zero zero,” Ben Ferguson, among the emergency responders to reach the scene, told CBS news. “We were all there, and we ended up carrying the bodies down the street.”

Ferguson, a former student at Lo Lombi Surf Club, said the club members were among the first to provide medical care to the people injured in the shooting, and he said they started doing so as soon as the gunfire stopped as soon as the gunfire stopped as soon as the gunfire stopped. “We saw that it was a mass shooting event when someone hit a reload, and we just knew we were in total danger.”

“There was a really big feeling … constant paranoia that the bomb was going to go off. And we didn’t know where the detonators were,” Cerguson told CBS News on Monday. “The Surf Club has a lot of medical equipment of its own, so there was a lot of running around and moving oxygen tanks.”

Friends and family paid tribute to Slain Rabbi Eli Schlanger

Alex Ryvchin, Co-PEO of the Executive Council of Jews of Australia, told CBB news that he believes the last-minute decision to be able to attend the Hanukkah event saved his life.

“10 years ago, the Rabbi invited me to speak and convey the message. And this year, I didn’t have time, I had another place.

“The rabbi who invited me, who was a dear friend of mine, would have been there standing next to this,” Ryvchin told CBBS News.

The CO-CEO paid tribute to Rabbi Eli Sckange, who was one of the organizers of the event, calling him “an amazing person.” Ryvchin said Sckanger’s work across the state of New South Wales included helping people who are under and visiting hospitals with terminal illnesses.

Schlanger’s father-in-law, Rabbi Mendel Kastel, was also present at his ceremony.

“The last 24 hours have been really, really hard,” Katel told CBS News on Monday. “You know, you lost a son-in-law, you know, a family member, so, I’m directly affected. But at the same time, I’ve been really hard.”

Kastel dismissed Skkange as ‘an amazing young man, someone who was committed to his work. “

“He is committed to the community. People loved him. People loved him. He taught people in prison, Rabival would teach others. Rabbi will teach others with his enthusiasm.

Shalom, a 20-year-old man from Miami who lived in Bondi, told CBB news my friend on Monday after he was shot while near a Sclanger.

“According to what I heard, there was Ralomu and one of the policemen, and all three were shot,” said Shalom. “My friend … was shot twice, one shot in the stomach, one in the leg, one in the leg.”

“We were in the hospital all night last night, and we were with him, praying, just doing it for him and he had surgery and surgery [the bullet] They hit one of his intestines and they fixed it, and they said he was stable, thank God,” Shalom said.

Grieving residents living in Bondi, an area south of Sydvey, gathered on Monday to lay flowers and help the dead following the shooting attack.

According to Rabbi Kastel, that community spirit is the core of what Hanukkah symbolizes.

“We want to light up, we want to light those candles together, we want to put our arms around each other and really build the right Australian community where people feel important, people feel loved,” People said.