Israel’s Amichai Chikli said Australian officials overlooked rising antisemitism and extremist rhetoric ahead of the Bondi Beach Hanukkah attack, criticizing the focus on gun laws.

The massacre has prompted a national reckoning about antisemitism and questions about whether the country’s leaders took seriously enough the threat to Australian Jews.

The authorities are vowing to crack down after a mass shooting at a Jewish holiday celebration. Experts say that what the country needs might not be new laws.

Less than 48 hours after the deadly attack at Sydney's Bondi Beach that left more than a dozen dead, Australian authorities announced proposals for sweeping new gun laws.

For Australia’s tiny Jewish population, Bondi Beach was a refuge within a vast country that offered sanctuary to families fleeing a seething hate that killed six million of their kind within the lifetime of some of their oldest members.

The police found two homemade Islamic State flags in the car of the suspects, a 50-year-old man and his 24-year-old son.