Homemade Islamic State flags were found in a vehicle registered to one of the gunmen blamed for killing 15 people at a Bondi Beach Hanukkah celebration Sunday, Australian authorities said Tuesday.

The two had also traveled to an area of the Philippines last month where Islamic State-aligned groups have operated, officials in Manila said, as more information on the father and son attackers comes into focus.

The son’s vehicle contained explosive devices and the two homemade flags, New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said at a briefing.

READ MORE: At least 10 dead in mass shooting at Sydney's Bondi Beach

“Early indications point to a terrorist attack inspired by Islamic State, allegedly committed by a father and son,” Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett said at the same briefing, adding that no other suspects have been identified. “These are the alleged actions of those who have aligned themselves with a terrorist organization not a religion.”

Australian Broadcasting Corp, citing law-enforcement sources, have identified the attackers as 24-year-old Naveed Akram and his father Sajid, 50. The father, who died at the scene, arrived in Australia on a student visa in 1998, authorities confirmed without naming him.

Separately on Tuesday, the Philippine Bureau of Immigration said the pair had traveled to the country last month, arriving together on Nov 1 and headed to Davao on Mindanao. The southern island is where groups aligned with the Islamic State have operated.

They left the country Nov 28 on a connecting flight from Davao to Manila, with Sydney as their final destination, according to a spokesperson.

The Manila immigration authorities said Sajid Akram was an Indian national and Australian resident, while his son Naveed was an Australian national.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

The son — once investigated by domestic intelligence agency ASIO in 2019 — remains in a coma. He had connections and associations with members of a Sydney-based Islamic State terrorism cell and was a follower of Sydney radical cleric Wisam Haddad, the ABC reported.

Lanyon said information about the father’s gun license had changed. He received the license in 2023, not 2015 as police had first advised.

Global Mourning

Vigils in Australia and across the world have marked the Bondi Beach massacre, an attack that’s fueled pressure for tougher gun laws and mounting anger within the Jewish community.

Authorities said the crime scene by the beach was likely to stay active until Wednesday afternoon. Twenty-five people remain in hospital, New South Wales Health said early Tuesday.

In London, mourners gathered at Parliament Square to remember the victims of the attack, as major cities around the world ramp up security for Hanukkah. Similar gatherings had also taken place in cities including New York and Berlin. Hanukkah events and vigils took place in central Melbourne on Monday evening, with landmarks lit up to commemorate the Bondi victims.

The Sydney Opera House was illuminated with a giant image of a Hanukkah menorah on Monday evening as thousands gathered in Bondi Beach to mourn the victims that included a Holocaust survivor and a 10 year-old child.

In the city’s Hyde Park, Jewish community leaders stood with Muslim and Indigenous peers in a vigil organized by the First Nations community.

Emotions in Australia, however, were mixed with mounting anger as members of the Jewish community accused the government of failing to halt a rising tide of antisemitism, following a two-year surge in such incidents.

Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Monday rejected criticism of his handling of escalating attacks, while urging Australians to rally around the Jewish community. Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke was heckled at the Bondi Beach vigil on Monday evening, while Victoria’s Labor Premier Jacinta Allan was booed at an event in Melbourne’s Caulfield.

Blood banks in Sydney and Melbourne saw lines around the block on Monday, with reports of booking websites crashing, after a callout for donations to support shooting victims drew an overwhelming response. More than 50,000 appointments have been made in New South Wales, a five-fold increased, state Premier Chris Minns said.

Gun Control

The National Cabinet met on Monday and agreed to ask police ministers and attorneys-general to explore tighter gun control laws. Options included caps on the number of firearms an individual can hold, stricter rules on the permitted gun types and a requirement that license holders be Australian citizens.

As an immediate priority, the government will begin work on additional customs restrictions for firearms and other weapons-type imports, including 3-D printing and novel technology, and firearms equipment that can hold large amounts of ammunition.

New Zealand Experience

New Zealand’s gun laws were overhauled after a 2019 terror attack on two Christchurch mosques, when a single gunman used a semi-automatic assault-style rifle to kill 51 people. Then-Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern banned military-style weapons and initiated the creation of a national firearms register, noting at the time that her government had announced reforms “within 10 days of this horrific act of terrorism.”

While the swift action won her international attention and praise, it also drew criticism within New Zealand for being rushed and for unfairly penalizing law-abiding gun owners.

The country is now introducing new gun laws that aim to ease compliance for licensed owners while taking further steps to prevent criminals from accessing firearms and retaining restrictions on military-style weapons.

Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee — who is championing the changes and is a former spokesperson for the Council of Licensed Firearm Owners — said Ardern’s rapidly enacted reforms in 2019 created a “complex, confusing and bureaucratic patchwork” that made it difficult for lawful gun owners to comply, while not adequately keeping the public safe.

Sascha-Dominik Dov Bachmann, professor of law and security at the University of Canberra, said the government should hold an emergency parliamentary session to consider the recommendations outlined by Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism Jillian Segal in a July government framework.

“Albanese has a lot of pressure points at the moment,” he said. “So he has to show leadership, like we saw under Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand post the mosque killing. The country came together.”

Australia’s challenge on gun control policy is that the current regime is state-based and uneven in its settings and enforcement, said Imogen Richards, senior lecturer at the department of criminology at Deakin University.

“The Commonwealth’s most practical role is coordination, standards, and capability-building,” she said. “A clear priority is accelerating nationally consistent information systems.”

Antisemitism Fight

Albanese has also said ministers had pledged to stamp out antisemitism, hate, violence and terrorism. The country saw a record 1,045 such incidents in 2024, up 26 percent from the previous year and more than double the average annual tally from 2018 to 2022, according to a report by Community Security Group, a Jewish not-for-profit organization.

Australia’s Special Envoy Segal said she had been working with Albanese’s government on pursuing the plan’s recommendations.

READ MORE: Sydney knife attacker shot dead after killing 5 in Bondi

Still, “people have been calling for a sort of general statement of support and an acceleration of that, and that’s what I’m hoping we should hear from him about soon,” she told Bloomberg Television Tuesday.

Former Liberal Prime Minister John Howard, who oversaw Australia’s last crackdown on gun ownership following the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, where 35 people were killed, said not enough had been done in recent years to “prevent, cauterize and denounce the spread of antisemitism.”

“I hope that this terrible event will be a wake-up call to those who have been asleep at the wheel,” he said.