{"id":238393,"date":"2025-12-18T00:41:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T00:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/238393\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T00:41:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T00:41:09","slug":"actions-of-bondi-beach-hero-declared-a-source-of-pride-for-syria-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/238393\/","title":{"rendered":"Actions of Bondi Beach hero declared \u2018a source of pride for Syria\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Syrian-Australian man who disarmed one of the alleged Bondi Beach<\/a> gunmen has been hailed as a hero in Syria<\/a>, where footage of his brave actions are being widely watched and shared.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll Syrians would do this,\u201d said one man in Damascus proudly, while looking at a video of Ahmed al-Ahmed in hospital on his phone.<\/p>\n

Fruit seller Ahmed was captured on camera sneaking between two cars, before rushing forward to tackle and disarm one of the alleged attackers on Sunday. In the video, viewed tens of millions of times online, he jumps up behind the man, pulling the gun off him.<\/p>\n

The gunmen were targeting Jewish people gathering to mark the start of Hanukkah at Sydney\u2019s Bondi Beach. At least 15 people were killed<\/a>, as well as one of the alleged gunmen. Ahmed, who has two young daughters, was shot multiple times.<\/p>\n

Ahmed \u2013 in his 40s \u2013 comes from Nayrab, in Idlib, northwest Syria, but has lived in Australia<\/a> for almost two decades, where he has citizenship. <\/p>\n

Nayrab was under rebel control for much of Syria\u2019s long war and is largely destroyed. Ahmed\u2019s parents recently travelled to join him in Australia.<\/p>\n

Footage shows Ahmed al-Ahmed wrestling a firearm from an alleged gunman at Sydney\u2019s Bondi Beach. Video: Reuters <\/p>\n

\u201cHis act is a source of pride for us and for Syria,\u201d Ahmed\u2019s uncle, 60-year-old farmer Mohammed, told AFP news agency. Mohammed said he found out what had happened through social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis incident caused a global sensation. He is from Syria and he is a Muslim and he had no motivation for doing this other than heroism and bravery,\u201d his uncle said.<\/p>\n

Ahmed\u2019s parents, Mohamed Fateh Al Ahmed and Malakeh Hasan Al Ahmed, told ABC their son would have done whatever he could to protect people. \u201cWhen he did what he did, he wasn\u2019t thinking about the background of the people he\u2019s saving, the people dying in the street,\u201d his father said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe doesn\u2019t discriminate between one nationality and another. Especially here in Australia, there\u2019s no difference between one citizen and another . . . \u201cI feel pride and honour because my son is a hero of Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese visited Ahmed in hospital, calling him<\/a> \u201can Australian hero . . . You put yourself at risk to save others, running towards danger on Bondi Beach and disarming a terrorist. In the worst of times, we see the best of Australians. And that\u2019s exactly what we saw on Sunday night.\u201d<\/p>\n

US president Donald Trump said he had \u201cgreat respect\u201d for the \u201cvery brave\u201d Syrian man.<\/p>\n

Chris Minns, the premier of New South Wales state, called Ahmed\u2019s heroism \u201cthe most unbelievable scene I\u2019ve ever seen\u201d, saying he saved \u201ccountless\u201d lives.<\/p>\n

Some photographs of Ahmed show him lying in his hospital bed wearing a scarf with the new Syrian flag draped around his neck. The country has officially adopted the former green, black and white revolutionary flag since Bashar al-Assad\u2019s regime was ousted from power last year.<\/p>\n

An online fundraiser<\/a> for Ahmed has raised more than \u20ac2.12 million. \u201cIn a moment of chaos and danger, Ahmed al-Ahmed stepped forward without hesitation,\u201d the description reads. \u201cHis actions were selfless, instinctive and undeniably heroic, taken without regard for his own safety\u2026 No one expects to be a hero, but when the moment came, he was.\u201d <\/p>\n

Donors included American billionaire William Ackman, who gave more than \u20ac85,000. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Syrian-Australian man who disarmed one of the alleged Bondi Beach gunmen has been hailed as a hero…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238394,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[1128,9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,15516,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-238393","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-latest-news","15":"tag-latestnews","16":"tag-main-news","17":"tag-mainnews","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-syria","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-topstories","22":"tag-world","23":"tag-world-news","24":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115737793975288254","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}