SARAH STINSON: How devastating events at Bondi Beach could forge something more powerful

Sunday mornings in Bondi unfold with comforting predictability.

Bare feet on warm sand. Zinc on noses. Children wriggling into caps that never quite sit straight. Parents juggling towels and takeaway coffees, half-watching the surf, half-chatting about the week ahead. The flags go up. Whistles blow. The air carries the familiar mix of sunscreen, barbecued sausages and salt, heavy with summer. Life moves forward in a way that feels reassuringly simple.

Earlier this year, I visited Israel, where sirens are part of the landscape - shelters built into bus stops, people instinctively scanning for exits. I walked streets knowing that life can turn in seconds. It never felt like something that would follow me home.

On Sunday morning, life was exactly as it always is.

My seven-year-old daughter went off to Nippers. Laughing, sprinting into the water, fearless and free. My husband took his place as age manager, clipboard in hand, scanning the surf, counting heads. Parents stood nearby, relaxed, trusting the system, the routine, the place.

It was the Australia we know instinctively - open, easy, safe.

Six hours later, that certainty was gone.

Sirens cut through the afternoon. Then more. Ambulances racing past. Police everywhere. Helicopters overhead. The sound of panic and urgency in a place that usually moves at its own gentle pace.

Phones started buzzing. The neighbourhood and parents WhatsApp group lit up confusion first, then fear. Does anyone know what’s happening? Are you okay? Stay inside. Lock your doors.

Information came slowly. Rumours came fast. Fear filled the space in between.

As the picture became clearer, shock settled into something heavier. The sickening feeling that something fundamental had shifted.

At first, there was hope that no lives had been lost. Then came the devastating reality: 15 innocent people killed, seven still fighting for their lives, and many more gravely injured.

In the days since, grief has sat alongside anger and anxiety. We’re asking questions we’re not used to asking: Is it safe to gather? Is it safe to celebrate? Is it safe to keep living the way we always have?

For Jewish Australians, those questions land even harder. Anti-Semitism has been rising for some time - documented, warned about, often minimised. What was once brushed off as fringe has become more visible, more brazen, and more frightening. After Bondi, that fear has sharpened.

And yet, amid the heartbreak, something else has been impossible to miss.

Blood donation centres overwhelmed. Appointments booked out. People lining up for hours. Non-Jewish Australians lighting Hanukkah candles not out of ritual, but out of solidarity.

I wrote earlier this year, what sustains people in dark moments isn’t certainty - it’s connection. That instinct has surfaced again.

Where we go next matters. Whether fear hardens us, or whether grief pulls us apart. I am devastated; it is difficult to process the violence, the loss and the shock that has rippled through our community. Rebuilding is not only about restoring safety it is about restoring confidence: in our public spaces, in one another, and in the values that bind us all as proud Australians. To the victims and their families, there are no words equal to your loss.

Bondi has always stood for openness and belonging. What it can stand for now is something even more powerful - an Australia that mourns without turning inward, that protects what matters most, and that refuses to let violence and hate rewrite who we are.

Sarah Stinson is Channel 7 Director of Morning Television