Chilling footage released on Wednesday captured the final moments in the lives of Rabbi Eli Schlanger, 41, and 10-year-old Matilda, who were murdered in the shooting attack at Bondi Beach in Sydney. The video showed Rabbi Schlanger placing tefillin on a passerby, with Matilda standing nearby, just minutes before terrorists opened fire on those celebrating the first Hanukkah candle.

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Video: The Gurmans fight the terrorist / Credit: Social media/X

Family members confirmed Boris Gurman, 69, and Sofia Gurman, 61, as the individuals after providing a statement to the Sydney Morning Herald. Relatives stated: "We are heartbroken by the sudden and senseless loss of our beloved Boris and Sofia Gurman," according to The Guardian.

They added: "They had been married for 34 years, with their 35th wedding anniversary approaching in January. We were looking forward to celebrating Sofia's 62nd birthday on Wednesday 17th of December," The Guardian reported.

Dashboard camera video uploaded to Rednote documented Boris – dressed in purple – tackling shooter Sajid Akram along Campbell Parade as the gunman exited a vehicle displaying an Islamic State banner, according to The Guardian.

These were Boris and Sofia Gurman - murdered in the Sydney massacre. In the face of terror, Boris showed extraordinary courage and disarmed one of the jihadists, trying to save others.

In life and in death, they were not separated pic.twitter.com/Fhbw2BoNsf

— נועה מגיד | Noa magid (@NoaMagid) December 16, 2025

The footage captures Boris forcing Akram down and wresting a firearm from his possession while Sofia participated in the struggle, The Guardian reported.

A Sydney resident whose camera inadvertently recorded the encounter shared the material with a Mandarin caption stating: "Such civilian heroes shouldn't be forgotten," according to The Guardian. Her post continued: "I'm truly heartbroken," The Guardian reported.

Later drone imagery shows the couple lying motionless side by side on the sidewalk. Family members characterized Boris as "a retired mechanic, known for his generosity, quiet strength and willingness to lend a hand to anyone in need. Sofia worked at Australia Post and was deeply loved by her colleagues and community," The Guardian reported.

The statement continued: "Bondi locals, together they lived honest, hardworking lives and treated everyone they met with kindness, warmth and respect. Boris and Sofia were devoted to their family and to each other. They were the heart of our family, and their absence has left an immeasurable void," according to The Guardian.

Relatives additionally praised the couple's valor when facing the attacker, The Guardian reported. "In recent days, we have become aware of footage showing Boris, with Sofia by his side, courageously attempting to disarm an attacker in an effort to protect others," family members stated. They added: "While nothing can lessen the pain of losing Boris and Sofia, we feel an overwhelming sense of pride in their bravery and selflessness. This encapsulates who Boris and Sofia were – people who instinctively and selflessly tried to help others," The Guardian reported.

The statement concluded: "We are deeply grateful for the love, compassion and support that has been shown to our family during this unimaginable time. From here, we kindly ask for privacy as we grieve," according to The Guardian.

The Gurmans number among 15 fatalities from the Bondi beach terror attack. Most casualties were participating in Hanukkah's opening day when gunfire began, representing Australia's deadliest mass shooting since 1996's Port Arthur tragedy, according to The Guardian.

Thirty-eight additional people sustained injuries, with 24 – including two officers – remaining hospitalized Tuesday afternoon, The Guardian reported.

Six Australia Post coworkers visited Bondi Pavilion Tuesday afternoon honoring Sofia, with one colleague declining identification while confirming years working together, according to The Guardian. All arrived uniformed, placing individual white roses and a card, The Guardian reported. One coworker stated: "It's very tragic and seeing this video made us realise just how brave she and her husband was," according to The Guardian.

Multiple bystanders have received widespread recognition for confronting danger attempting to halt the attackers. Among them is Ahmed al-Ahmed, acknowledged by prime minister Anthony Albanese and US president Donald Trump for charging toward Akram, jumping onto him and seizing the weapon, according to The Guardian.

Ahmed remains critically injured but stable at St George hospital after sustaining four to five shoulder gunshot wounds during the encounter, his parents confirmed to The Guardian. Reuven Morrison's daughter identified her father as the individual observed throwing an object in widely distributed footage, The Guardian reported.

Sheina Gutnick told CBS News Tuesday: "If there was one way for him to go on this earth, it would be fighting a terrorist. There was no other way he would be taken from us. He went down fighting, protecting the people he loved most," according to The Guardian. Authorities fatally shot Sajid Akram, while his son Naveed remains hospitalized under surveillance, The Guardian reported.

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Since emigrating to Australia on a student visa in 1998, Akram – formerly residing in Hyderabad's Tolichowki area – rarely set foot in India, making the journey only "two-three occasions," authorities disclosed to The Hindu.

"His father died in 2017; he did not even come to attend his last rites," a senior government official reported to The Hindu. Other officials told The Hindu that Akram's close family members still live in Hyderabad, including an elder brother practicing medicine. The late father finished his UAE military career in 1984.

Naveed Akram – Sajid's son and the attack's second perpetrator – took police bullets and remains under medical care, The Hindu learned. Born in Australia in 2001, he holds Australian nationality. "After completing bachelors in commerce from Hyderabad, Akram moved to Australia and married a European woman. He retained his Indian passport," the official conveyed to The Hindu.

Asked about possible Indian ties, the source informed The Hindu, "Preliminary investigation does not establish any local links so far. We do not have access to his activities in Australia. His background was checked based on information from our sources."

Information verified by The Hindu indicates Australian investigators maintain active dialogue described as "in touch" with Indian officials about the examination.

Philippine immigration personnel disclosed Tuesday that Sajid Akram entered their territory on an Indian passport in November, accompanied by his Australian-national son Naveed Akram, The Hindu reported.

"Sajid Akram, 50, Indian national, and Naveed Akram, 24, Australian national, arrived in the Philippines together last November 1, 2025, from Sydney, Australia," announced Dana Sandoval, speaking for the Bureau of Immigration, to Manila news outlets Tuesday, per The Hindu.

The Ministry of External Affairs offered no statement regarding Philippine authorities' comments, The Hindu found. Officials stressed that Australian investigators bear the duty of providing probe particulars.

Australian investigators have so far withheld comment on the attackers' backgrounds, the report noted. When pressed whether Sajid Akram originated from India or Pakistan, as certain accounts proposed, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said such information forms part of the active investigation.

"So I can't go into that detail and it wouldn't be appropriate to undermine the investigation by going into it," Prime Minister Albanese addressed reporters Tuesday, according to The Hindu.

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A student opened fire at a university in the Russian city of Perm on Monday, killing at least eight people and wounding several, law enforcement said.

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The gunman was himself killed after the shootings at Perm State University, around 1,300 km (800 miles) east of Moscow, Natalia Pechishcheva, a university spokesperson, said.

"He was liquidated," she said. Footage from the scene showed his prone body on the ground outside.

Earlier media footage from the scene showed students jumping from first-floor windows to escape the building, landing heavily on the ground before running to safety.

Students built barricades out of chairs to stop the shooter from entering their classrooms, they said.

The gunman was identified as a student at the university, the Investigative Committee, that handles probes into major crimes, said.

"There were about 60 people in the classroom. We closed the door and barricaded it with chairs," student Semyon Karyakin told Reuters.

Local media identified the gunman as an 18-year-old student who had earlier posted a social media photo of himself posing with a rifle, helmet and ammunition.

"I've thought about this for a long time, it's been years and I realised the time had come to do what I dreamt of," he said on a social media account attributed to him that was later taken down.

He indicated his actions had nothing to do with politics or religion but were motivated by hatred.

Russia has strict restrictions on civilian firearm ownership, but some categories of guns are available for purchase for hunting, self-defense or sport, once would-be owners have passed tests and met other requirements.

The shootings were the latest in a series.

Earlier this year a lone teenage gunman opened fire at a school in the city of Kazan in May, killing nine people and wounding many more.

That was Russia's deadliest school shooting since 2018 when a student at a college in Russian-annexed Crimea killed 20 people before turning his gun on himself.

Russia raised the legal age for buying firearms from 18 to 21 after the Kazan shooting, but the new law has yet to come into force.

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The son of a couple killed in a Pittsburgh synagogue attack that killed 11 worshippers is suing the National Rifle Association, arguing the group's inflammatory rhetoric led to the violence.

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Marc Simon, the son of Sylvan and Bernice Simon, filed the wrongful death lawsuit Thursday in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court against the NRA, the gun maker Colt's Manufacturing Co., and accused shooter, Robert Bowers, news outlets reported. Colt manufactured the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle allegedly used by Bowers.

A fourth defendant is the unknown business that sold Bowers the gun.

Bowers is charged with killing 11 congregants at the Tree of Life synagogue in the deadliest attack on Jews in US history. Police said the former truck driver expressed hatred of Jews during and after the October 2018 rampage."Bowers was not born fearing and hating Jews," the suit claims. "The gun lobby taught him to do that."

Bowers has pleaded not guilty. No trial date has been set, and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

The plaintiff argues gun lobbyists like the NRA radicalized people with "mendacious white supremacist conspiracy theories." The lawsuit also says Colt could have prevented the AR-15 from "bump firing," or using a modification that allows the rifle to fire more rapidly.

An NRA spokesperson declined comment on the lawsuit. The group filed for bankruptcy last week, and the claims against them in Simon's lawsuit will be stayed as a result of the group's reorganizing.

Colt did not respond to request for comment. Besides a wrongful death claim, the complaint accuses Colt of product liability and says the gun is more akin to a military-style weapon than a civilian product.

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The government pledged to step up security after a right-wing extremist tried to force his way into a synagogue in the eastern city of Halle on Yom Kippur last  year, killing two passers-by after he failed to get in.

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The botched attempt at a massacre caused alarm in Germany, which has sought to protect its Jewish population in response to the genocide of 6 million Jews perpetrated during the Nazi era.

"The Jewish community can rely on the German government to do everything to ensure their necessary protection," Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said. "We're aware of our responsibility."

Head of Germany's Central Council of Jews, Josef Schuster, said the new funds would help Jewish communities that are struggling with the financial burden of security measures.

"The attack in Halle drastically [shows] us that Jewish life needs massive protection," he said.

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State and federal law enforcement officials revealed details about the months leading up to the shootings by David Anderson and Francine Graham, a couple who expressed hatred of Jews and law enforcement in notes left at the grocery shooting scene and in online posts.

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"This was a senseless and cowardly act," US Attorney Craig Carpenito said.

Anderson, 47, and Graham, 50, shot and killed Jersey City Detective Joseph Seals in a chance meeting in a cemetery Dec. 10, then drove to the market and killed Mindel Ferencz, 31, who owned the store with her husband; Moshe Deutsch, 24, a rabbinical student from Brooklyn who was shopping there; and store employee Douglas Miguel Rodriguez.

Rodriguez held the back door open for a wounded customer to escape before he was shot, authorities said Monday.

Video: Reuters

Five weapons and hundreds of rounds of ammunition were found in the store afterward. Investigators also found a bomb in the couple's van that could have sprayed shrapnel fragments "five football fields long," Gregory Ehrie, special agent in charge of the FBI in Newark, said. The van also contained materials that could have made a second bomb, he said.

It's not known for certain what prompted the confrontation between Seals and the shooters. Officials speculated that Seals, a 13-year veteran who was meeting someone about returning a car that had been impounded, may have stopped the U-Haul van Anderson and Graham were driving because it fit the description of a vehicle connected to the slaying of a livery car driver in Bayonne a few days earlier.

In doing so, Seals may have thrown off their plans and prevented more bloodshed, Carpenito said, but he did not provide more detail.

Anderson and Graham bludgeoned and then shot the livery driver Michael Rumberger, 34, officials said, though it wasn't clear if he had been targeted. The pair also had done online research on a Jewish center in nearby Bayonne in the days before the attack in Jersey City, Carpenito said.

Barricaded in the kosher store, Anderson and Graham were killed after a lengthy gun battle with the police that sent the sound of gunfire booming for hours through the neighborhood in New Jersey's second-largest city, across the street from a school.

A gun recovered at the kosher grocery that was used by Anderson and Graham to kill Rumberger also was used to shoot out the windows of a car driven by a hassidic man on a highway near Jersey City, the investigation revealed. That man was not injured.

That shooting wasn't reported until investigators began probing the market shootings.

"Up until the attack, there wasn't anything that would have put either of them on anybody's radar," Ehrie said.

But surveillance video showed Anderson and Graham had driven past the market in their rented U-Haul van twice in the week leading up to the shootings, Carpenito said.

At the scene, a note found on Anderson contained a reference to a 1990s documentary, "The FBI's War on Black America," which explored the FBI's targeting of individuals involved in the civil rights movement in the 1960s, Carpenito said. He added that a timestamp written on the note corresponded to a segment in the documentary where an interviewee advocates killing "fascist pig cops."

Investigators found among Anderson's social media posts a reference to Jews as "imposters who inhabited synagogues of Satan."

Anderson received about $560 per month as a military veteran and may have sold property and a van to make money, officials said, but investigators have found no evidence he received outside assistance to purchase weapons or bomb-making materials.

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While there is no set time frame, "it is indeed our goal we will one day return to Tree of Life," said Tree of Life's Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, who was leading Shabbat services when the shooting began.

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The three congregations that were attacked on Oct. 27 – Tree of Life, New Light, and Dor Hadash – now worship at two other synagogues.

Leaders from the congregations were gathering Friday to reflect on the past year and discuss plans for next month's observance.

The theme for the October commemoration is "Remember. Repair. Together." Events planned for Sunday, Oct. 27 – exactly one year after the massacre – include a private Jewish service in the morning, doing community service in the city, studying the portion of the Torah that was to be read when the shooting occurred, and a public memorial service in the evening.

"There is no intention to make this an anniversary. Anniversary indicates a happy event. This is not. We will commemorate to remember and repair together," said New Light's co-president, Stephen Cohen.

"Our hearts were torn 11 months ago, and healing does not occur overnight," he said. "Even now, there are family members who cannot even drive by the building – they are in so much pain. We look upon this day as a way of repairing that hurt."

That idea stems from tikkun olam, the Jewish concept of repairing the world, said Adam Hertzman, marketing director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, one of several groups helping with Friday's discussion and the one-year commemoration.

Authorities charged Robert Bowers, 47, a truck driver from Baldwin, Pennsylvania, in the attack that killed eight men and three women, and wounded seven others inside the Tree of Life synagogue, where congregants from New Light and Dor Hadash also had gathered. Bowers has pleaded not guilty. He faces the death penalty if convicted.

Myers and others also want the commemoration to recognize the outpouring of support that continues from people in Pittsburgh and around the world.

"The community is healing. We will never be healed … [but] there are people who have found their voices and are engaged in a wide range of activities to promote healing," Myers said.

Businesses in the city's Squirrel Hill neighborhood, home to Tree of Life, still display "Stronger than hate" signs in their windows. A makeshift memorial bearing the 11 victims' names stood outside the synagogue for weeks and drew thousands of visitors.

Hundreds showed up for a public lighting of a Menorah outside the synagogue in December. Blue tarps that once covered a long chain-link fence made way this month for paintings by young people from Pittsburgh and around the globe.

In six weeks, the synagogue received 224 drawings bearing messages of hope, support, and perseverance such as "We may face defeat, but we must not be defeated," ''You are not alone" and "Brush away the darkness."

More than half were by students in Parkland, Florida; Littleton, Colorado; Newtown, Connecticut; and New Zealand, all places that have experienced mass shootings.

The paintings are "a bigger statement than anything else anyone could have done," Cohen said. They "turn the building into a thing of beauty. It changes the focus from the present to the future."

Ellen Surloff, immediate past president of Dor Hadash, finds the drawings inspiring but also "heartbreaking," knowing many of the young artists were affected by mass shootings, too.

The one-year commemoration will focus on the victims and healing, she said, but Surloff also wants "an awareness that the reason we are there speaking on Friday is because a white supremacist who hated immigrants got access to an assault weapon."

Investigators say Bowers opened fire with an AR-15 rifle and other weapons, and that he posted criticism of a Jewish charity on social media prior to the attack, claiming the immigrant aid society "likes to bring invaders that kill our people." Authorities said Bowers also raged against Jews as he gunned down his victims, and told investigators "all these Jews need to die."

"The shooter did not defeat us," Surloff said. "We were a strong community before the shooting and we are a stronger community after the shooting." She added: "It left an indelible mark on ourselves and on our community. But it does not define us. It will never define us."

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Hanson Larkin, 25, was in an Orlando federal court the same day, charged with making threats through interstate communication to, according to police, a Jewish man that included: "If meeting me for five seconds is not worth the lives of multiple Jews then I have no other option" and "There's a Chabad near me. And Amtrak has no security for weapons. Don't make me make a choice they'll regret."

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A Jewish man, Lizardo Rivas, 44, allegedly rejected romantic advances from Larkin and notified authorities of the threats.

Rivas said he has communicated with Larkin for two years, and that the suspect has expressed bigotry toward Jews and had suicidal thoughts.

Larkin appeared in court again on Tuesday and was denied bail. He could face up to five years behind bars if convicted.

Also on Friday, a 45-year-old man in Daytona Beach, Fla., was charged with making threats, including against Jews.

Leo Arong Jr. posted the threats as comments on YouTube during a livestream of "PBS NewsHour." They included, "I hate jews because I am an inbred LOSER. We have to kill jews in order for LOSERS like me to feel relevant. Thank you."

He was charged with making written threats to kill or harm people related to a mass shooting or act of terrorism and was transported to the Volusia County Branch Jail. He was denied bail.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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The US attorney's office in Pittsburgh filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty against 46-year-old Robert Bowers in last year's attack.

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The government filing said that justification for a death sentence included allegations of substantial planning and premeditation, the vulnerability and number of victims, and motivation of religious hostility.

It also listed the injury, harm, and loss caused to the victims and the choice of the Tree of Life synagogue as the site of the attack.

The notice accused Bowers of targeting the worshippers "in order to maximize the devastation, amplify the harm of his crimes, and instill fear within the local, national and international Jewish communities."

Bowers has pleaded not guilty and awaits trial. His lawyers did not return messages seeking comment. A spokeswoman for US Attorney Scott Brady declined to discuss the filing.

Prosecutors wrote that the death penalty will be justified if Bowers is convicted of obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death or of using a gun to commit a crime of violence.

Bowers is accused of using an AR-15 rifle and other weapons to target worshippers in the Tree of Life synagogue during Saturday morning services in October. Seven people were also wounded, including five police officers.

Police have said that he expressed hatred of Jews during and after what was the deadliest attack on Jews in US history.

Shortly after the shootings, before Bowers was publicly identified as the suspect, US President Donald Trump said the perpetrator should "suffer the ultimate price."

"I think they should very much bring the death penalty into vogue," Trump told reporters in October.

"Anybody that does a thing like this to innocent people that are in temple or in church. We had so many incidents with churches. They should really suffer the ultimate price."

Two weeks ago, prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed to a 120-day extension in the case.

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