Five people have been killed and several are in a critical condition, including a baby, after stabbings at a shopping centre near Bondi Beach in Sydney.
Police said the attacker who acted alone has been shot dead by an officer who confronted him on her own.
Authorities said they do not know who the suspect is, nor the motive of the attack, but confirmed there is no longer a threat.
Hundreds of people were evacuated from the Westfield Bondi Junction shopping centre.
An ambulance spokesperson said people were still inside the building.
Image: The attack took place at Westfield Bondi Junction. Pic: AP
Anthony Cooke, assistant commissioner of New South Wales Police Force, said that a man walked into the centre, left then returned at 3.20pm (local time) as he proceeded through the centre where he “engaged with about nine people”.
Mr Cooke added: “A single unit officer, inspector of police, was nearby, attended, (and) went into the centre directed by a range of people.
“She confronted the offender who had moved, by this stage, to level five.
“As she continued to walk quickly behind to catch up with him he turned to face her, raised a knife, she discharged a firearm and that person is now deceased.”
Mr Cooke said the wounded were taken to hospital, and one of them is a “small child”.
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0:47
Police urged people to avoid the area.
A shopper said she thought she was “going to die”.
She told ABC News: “I was hiding in the backroom. I was hearing gunshots. It’s just the worst thing ever, who does that to people?
“I saw a woman lying on the floor in Chanel.
“I didn’t see him properly, I was running. It’s just insanity – I wasn’t expecting it.
“I thought I was going to die. Every moment was playing through my head, I was so scared.”
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‘I thought I was going to die’
Waverley Council said on X: “A critical incident has commenced following the shooting of a male at Bondi Junction. Just before 4pm today, emergency services were called to Westfield Bondi Junction following reports of multiple people stabbed. People are urged to avoid the area.”
Witness Roi Huberman, an ABC sound engineer, told the network that he sheltered in a store during the incident.
“And suddenly we heard a shot or maybe two shots and we didn’t know what to do,” he said. “Then the very capable person in the store took us to the back where it can be locked. She then locked the store and then she then let us through the back and now we are out.”
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said: “Tragically, multiple casualties have been reported and the first thoughts of all Australians are with those affected and their loved ones.”
Mr Cooke said he had not seen anything like this incident in Sydney before and that “this is a very difficult circumstance”.
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“Complete families were wiped off the civil registration record by Israeli bombardment,” Khalil Al-Deqran, Gaza health ministry spokesperson, told the Reuters news agency.
Nasser hospital, in the southern city of Khan Younis, said it received the bodies of 20 people killed in strikes that hit houses and tents in the Muwasi area. Hamas described that as a “new brutal crime”.
Image: Smoking debris after an airstrike at a tent camp in Khan Younis, southern Gaza on Sunday. Pic: Reuters
Image: Saleh Zenati carries the body of his nephew killed in Khan Younis on Sunday. Pic: AP
In central Gaza, at least 10 people were killed in two separate strikes, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in the town of Deir al Balah.
Meanwhile, first responders from the health ministry and the civil defence reported at least 36 people were killed in multiple strikes in Jabalia, northern Gaza.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the latest strikes.
Israel has blocked the entry of medical, food and fuel supplies into Gaza since the start of March. It is attempting to pressurise Hamas into freeing Israeli hostages and has approved plans that could involve seizing the whole of Gaza and controlling aid.
It comes as peace talks between Israel and Hamas take place in Qatar this weekend, although sources told Reuters there had been no breakthrough.
Sky News Arabia reported that Hamas had proposed freeing about half its Israeli hostages in exchange for a two-month ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
A Palestinian official close to the talks said: “Hamas is flexible about the number of hostages it can free, but the problem has always been over Israel’s commitment to end the war.”
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3:14
On Saturday, Israel ramped up attacks on Gaza
Earlier on Sunday, Gaza’s health ministry issued a statement accusing Israel of “intensifying its systematic campaign to target hospitals”.
“After putting the European Gaza Hospital out of service a few days ago, the Israeli occupation has intensified its targeting and siege of the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip since dawn today,” it added.
Israel has previously denied deliberately targeting civilians and accused Hamas of using hospitals for military purposes.
This week, Israel said it had bombed the European Hospital because it was home to an underground Hamas base, but Sky News analysis has cast doubt on its evidence.
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Mass protests on Saturday mark 77 years since the Nakba
Separately, the Israeli military said on Sunday it had intercepted a missile launched from Yemen toward Israel.
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said they had targeted Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv with two ballistic missiles.
The Houthis have fired at Israel because of the plight of Palestinians in Gaza, while Israel has carried out airstrikes in response, including one on 6 May that damaged Yemen’s main airport in Sanaa and killed several people.
The conflict began on 7 October 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting 251 others.
Israel’s military response has seen the deaths of more than 53,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
Donald Trump has said he will speak to Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy separately on Monday in a bid to secure a ceasefire deal between Russia and Ukraine.
The US president made the announcement on Truth Social – shortly after the Ukrainian president condemned Russiafor the “deliberate killing of civilians” after a drone hit a bus in north-eastern Ukraine.
Mr Trump said he will speak to Mr Putin over the phone. He will then talk with Mr Zelenskyy and “various members of NATO”, he wrote.
In an all-caps post, he said: “HOPEFULLY IT WILL BE A PRODUCTIVE DAY, A CEASEFIRE WILL TAKE PLACE, AND THIS VERY VIOLENT WAR, A WAR THAT SHOULD HAVE NEVER HAPPENED, WILL END. GOD BLESS US ALL!!!”
The Ukrainian town of Bilopillia today declared a period of mourning lasting until Monday after nine people were killed in a Russian drone attack – which occurred just hours after Kyiv and Moscow held peace talks.
Seven others were injured, Ukrainian authorities said. The bus was evacuating civilians from a frontline area when the drone hit, the country’s national police said.
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Nine killed in Russian strike on bus
A “father, mother and daughter” were among the dead, Mr Zelenskyy said, writing on Telegram: “All the deceased were civilians. And the Russians could not have failed to understand what kind of vehicle they were targeting.”
The attack has also been condemned by British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who said he was “appalled”.
“If Putin is serious about peace, Russia must agree to a full and immediate ceasefire, as Ukraine has done,” he wrote on X.
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While the discussions – which were not attended by the Mr Putin or Mr Zelenskyy – did not result in a truce, both countries agreed to exchange 1,000 prisoners in their biggest swap yet.
Ukraine’s intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, said on national television the exchange could happen as early as next week.
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1:52
What happened at Ukraine talks?
Russia ‘threatened eternal war’ at peace talks
After a Ukrainian official yesterday said Russia made “unacceptable” demands during the discussions, a source from the Kyiv delegation has now told Sky News that Moscow threatened “eternal war”.
Separately, a senior Kyiv official said Russia’s proposed ceasefire terms included the full withdrawal of troops from four regions of Ukraine: Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Luhansk.
Moscow also called for international recognition that those regions and Crimea – annexed in 2014 – are Russian and for Ukraine to become a neutral state, with no allied troops stationed there, they said.
Ukraine has rallied support from its allies following the talks, and a number have spoken out.
French President Emmanuel Macron said: “Today, what do we have? Nothing. And so I tell you, faced with President Putin’s cynicism, I am sure that President Trump, mindful of the credibility of the United States, will react.”
The EU is working on a new package of sanctions against Moscow, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.
On Sunday, President Trump called on leaders of both Russia and Ukraine to meet.
He posted: “President Putin of Russia wants to meet on Thursday, in Turkey, to negotiate a possible end to the BLOODBATH. Ukraine should agree to this, IMMEDIATELY.”
That post let the Russian leader off the hook. Only the day before, Putin had been ordered by Ukraine’s allies, including America, to agree to a 30-day unconditional ceasefire.
Image: Pic: AP
The Russian president had swerved that demand, suggesting talks instead.
“If the ceasefire is not respected, the US and its partners will impose further sanctions,” Trump posted before swivelling and backing Putin’s proposals for talks instead.
Undeterred, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accepted the call.
Putin though refused to go, sending officials instead.
And yet there was no reprimand from the US president. Instead, he chose to undermine the talks he had himself called for.
“Look, nothing is going to happen until Putin and I get together,” he told reporters on Air Force One. So much for that then.
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1:52
What happened at Ukraine talks?
It is what happened in those talks though that should give the US president the greatest pause for thought about Putin’s intentions – as it does in Kyiv.
The message they brought was blunt and belligerent, threatening eternal war.
“We don’t want war, but we’re ready to fight for a year, two, three – however long it takes,” lead Russian negotiator Vladimir Medinsky is reported to have said. “We fought Sweden for 21 years. How long are you ready to fight?”
Image: Russian negotiator Vladimir Medinsky. Pic: AP
Far from offering a compromise, they are reported to have demanded the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the four regions they have partially seized by force and the capitulation of another two, just for good measure.
And there was a chilling moment when the Russians are reported to have threatened their interlocutors like gangsters.
“Maybe some of those sitting here at this table will lose more of their loved ones,” Mednisky said. Russia is prepared to fight forever.
For Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister, that was personal.
Max, his 23-year-old nephew, lost his life fighting the Russians in 2022 not long after their illegal and unprovoked invasion began.
Image: Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister. Pic: AP
At the end of this week, Putin appears scornful of Western efforts to end this war through a ceasefire and negotiations and Trump seems happy to let him get away with it.
Even Fox News, normally slavishly subservient to Trump, is wondering what gives.
Its anchor Bret Baier is no Jeremy Paxman, but in an interview last night asked Donald Trump 10 times if he might finally now put pressure on Putin.
The US president ducked and dived, talking about the money he had made in his Gulf tour, Zelenskyy’s shortcomings, Biden, and Iran instead. But he did not give a straight answer to the question.
With performances like that, Putin has nothing to worry about. Trump’s position though seems increasingly untenable.
Ukraine’s European allies though should be alarmed. They threatened Russia with sanctions and retaliation last weekend if he rejected a ceasefire. He now has.
With or without America, will they be good to their word?