Police cordon off an area at Bondi Beach in Sydney after a terror attack at a Hanukkah by the Sea festival left at least 15 people dead.Mark Baker/AP

At least 15 people were killed, and more than three dozen hospitalized, in a shooting at Australia’s famous Bondi Beach in Sydney on Sunday in what authorities are calling a terrorist attack at a Jewish holiday celebration. 

One gunman has been killed and a second suspect, his 24-year-old son, is in custody and in critical condition, police said.

The attack comes amid a surge in antisemitic violence in Australia, home to the largest proportion of Holocaust survivors outside of Israel. It is Australia’s worst mass shooting in three decades, a rare occurrence in a country with one of the lowest rates of gun-related deaths in the developed world.

“This is a targeted attack on Jewish Australians on the first day of Hanukkah, which should be a day of joy,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia said, adding, “An attack on Jewish Australians is an attack on every Australian.”

At about 6:45 p.m. on Sunday, police began receiving reports that multiple people had been shot. “The gunmen emerged from a small silver hatchback parked by a footbridge near the beach and began firing into the crowd celebrating Hanukkah,”

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