Harrowing testimonies from the massacre at a Chabad Chanukah event in Sydney, Australia, on Sunday revealed the extent of the police failure, with one witness saying, “Even the police started running away—they just didn’t understand what was happening.”

Roni Asaraf, who escaped with his children from the inferno at Bondi Beach, recounted the moments of terror under fire in an interview with Channel 14.

Asaraf said that the fact that his family arrived at the event about half an hour late probably saved his life and the lives of his six children.

“We arrived at 6:30 p.m. instead of 5 p.m.,” he said. “The moment we entered, the chaos started. Even the police started running away—they didn’t understand what was happening.”

“We heard gunshots and started running like crazy with the children away from the beach. We are experienced, and we quickly understood that this was not fireworks but a terror attack. We managed to escape while helping other families with children.”

“We were extremely close to the terrorists. They came to shoot us even along our escape route out of the party, on the bridge.”

Asaraf said that his children were traumatized. “We’re shaken. There is hatred here, but we never imagined it would reach this level.”

Shmulik, another survivor, provided a particularly chilling description. “There were two terrorists—one on the bridge and one below it. They just shot non-stop for about 20 minutes. They shot, changed magazines, and continued shooting. There were four policemen there—no one returned fire. Nothing. They just froze.”

According to him, one of the terrorists slowly approached the crowd and opened fire. “I was watching him the entire time. I was with two babies—I was lying on top of them. I saw how he aimed, took his time, and opened fire. It was an attempt to hurt all Jews—men, women, children and the elderly.”

Another survivor, Ronen Toina, described the overwhelming sense of helplessness: “They surprised us and started shooting like madmen—this was a very severe terror incident. I feel like some kind of ‘Yehudon’ in the Golah here, without security and helpless. I send my daughter to a Jewish school, and I don’t know what will happen tomorrow.”

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)