Thirty-year-old Israeli Gefen Bitton has been identified as one of the victims of the Bondi Beach terror attack. Bitton was shot three times and is fighting for his life after he rushed to confront one of the shooters in the antisemitic Hanukkah attack.
Bitton, an Israeli national who, according to Australian media, has worked in Australia for the past three years as a garage door technician, appears in dramatic footage from Sunday’s attack alongside Ahmed Al Ahmed, who wrestled a weapon from one of the two gunmen and aimed it back at the attacker, Sajid Akram.
In the footage, Bitton is seen in a red shirt running toward Ahmed and Akram before Ahmed manages to wrestle the gun away. In other clips, Bitton later falls to the ground, apparently at the moment he was shot.
Ahmed, a 43-year-old Muslim father of two who owns a local tobacco store, was shot twice in the incident and taken to the hospital for surgery.
Australian police said that a 50-year-old father and his 24-year-old son, Sajid and Naveed Akram, carried out the attack on a Jewish celebration at Bondi Beach, killing 15 people in the country’s worst mass shooting in almost 30 years.
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Tom Cohen, a friend of Bitton’s, told Australia’s 7NEWS that Bitton had attended the Chanukah by the Sea celebration at Bondi Beach and looked forward to the ceremonial candle lighting in the moments before the shooting began.
According to 7NEWS, another friend who was with Bitton at the event lost sight of him in the initial chaos of the attack. Moments later, however, Bitton called his sister in Israel to tell her that he had been shot.
Gefen Biton, un Israélien de 30 ans, a couru vers l’un des terroristes lors de l’attaque à Sydney dans le but de l’éliminer et a été gravement blessé par balle par l’autre terroriste. Son état est toujours critique, il est sous sédation et ventilé dans un hôpital en Australie.… pic.twitter.com/OfDOt3P8Jb
— GENGIS KHAN ???????? ???????? ???? (@GENGIS9999) December 20, 2025
She relayed the information to Bitton’s friends in Sydney, who later located him at St Vincent’s Hospital, where he has reportedly undergone multiple surgeries and remains in intensive care.
In the days that followed, friends of Bitton recognized him in videos circulating online, in which he can apparently be seen being shot by Naveed Akram, who was out of frame.
“Our beautiful friend Gefen was shot three times with a shotgun and is now fighting in the ICU, after his act of heroism on Sunday night,” reads a GoFundMe page set up by friend Cayli Barr to raise money for Bitton’s recovery. “On behalf of his dad and his family, we are raising money for his medical expenses and rehabilitation — a long road ahead.
“After a long day of hiking in the Blue Mountains, one of Gefen’s favorite pastimes, all he wanted to do was celebrate Hannukah,” Barr wrote. “Sitting at the benches in Bondi with a friend, he insisted on staying until the last moment until the hannukiah lighting was completed. Little did he know, this decision would change his life.”
People stand in front of floral tributes left at the promenade of Bondi Beach in Sydney on December 18, 2025, to honor victims of the terror shooting that targeted a Jewish event there on December 14, 2025. (DAVID GRAY / AFP)
According to Barr, Bitton had initially escaped the massacre but turned around to confront the terrorist, calling her friend “a true hero that deserves recognition.”
Alongside Bitton and Ahmed, several other accounts of heroic bystanders during the Bondi Beach terror attack have emerged in recent days.
Reuven Morrison, a 62-year-old grandfather, was seen in footage hurling items at terrorist Sajid Akram after Ahmed disarmed him. Morrison was then shot dead by Naveed Akram.
Similarly, Boris and Sofia Gurman, a Russian-Jewish couple living in Bondi, were seen in dashcam footage confronting the father-and-son gunmen after the attackers parked their car. Boris attempted to wrestle a weapon from one of them before the couple was shot and killed.
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