Bondi Beach is almost unrecognisable. The sun is out but the surf is empty. The usually heaving main street is hushed.
Helicopters track overhead. Forensic investigators - bright blue figures in the distance - comb over the crime scene from Sunday afternoon when two gunmen opened fire at an event marking the Jewish festival of Hannukah, killing at least 15 people and injuring more than 40 others.
Beach chairs, crumpled towels, wads of clothing, a pair of children's sandals lie in a neat pile at the edge of the sand - all the things people left behind as they fled what police are calling Australia's deadliest terror attack.
Nearby, a wall of floral tributes has begun to grow over the footpath. Milling around are shocked locals. Hands cover trembling lips. Sunglasses do their best to hide puffy eyes.
I've grown up in fear my whole life, 22-year-old Jess tells the BBC. As a Jew, this felt inevitable, she adds.
That is the overriding sentiment here today – this is shocking for such a safe country and yet predictable for one that has been grappling with rising antisemitism.
Our innocence is over, you know? says Yvonne Harber who was at Bondi on Monday to mourn the previous day's horror.
I think we will be forever changed, a bit like Port Arthur, she adds, referring to the massacre in 1996 – Australia's worst – which prompted sweeping, pioneering gun reform.
More than 24 hours on, the Jewish community is still locating the missing and counting the dead.
Among them is a prominent local Rabbi, Eli Schlanger, who only a month ago had welcomed his fifth child.
The family broke. They are falling apart, his brother-in-law Rabbi Mendel Kastel told reporters after a sleepless night. The rabbi's wife, her best friend, [they] both lost their husbands.
The youngest victim is a 10-year-old named Matilda, whose only crime was being Jewish, says Alex Ryvchin, co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.
A man who I knew well, in his 90s, survived the Holocaust in the Soviet Union, only to be slaughtered standing next to his wife at a Hannukah event on Bondi Beach.
As the Bondi community and Jewish Australians reeled, hospital workers were still desperately trying to heal many of the injured. The attack has reignited conversations about the country’s security measures and the government's response to rising antisemitism, as local and national leaders grapple with the unexpected violence.
The Prime Minister has described the event as an act of pure evil, emphasizing the government's commitment to combating antisemitism as community leaders urge for immediate action and change.
