Garbage and Billy Bragg are amongst those in the music world sharing statements decrying the violence seen in the Bondi Beach attack.
- Read More: Garbage’s Shirley Manson: “I don’t have to be young, I don’t have to be sexy – if you cancel me, you cancel me”
On Sunday (December 14), Australia experienced one of the deadliest massacres in its history, when two gunmen opened fire on a Jewish celebration. At the time of writing, at least 15 people have died – including one of the gunmen – with many more civilians currently in hospital. The incident has been declared a terror attack at the Australian resort at a Hanukkah party on Sydney’s Bondi Beach.
More than 1,000 people were attending an event celebrating the first day of the Jewish festival Hanukkah on the beach, and the incident has been described by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as “an evil act of anti-Semitism”.
Garbage are currently on a tour around Australia, where they played at the Sydney Opera House just hours after the attack yesterday. The gig saw them pay tribute to victims of the tragedy during the introduction to ‘Queer’, while vocalist Shirley Manson addressed the “astoundingly frightening, violent, hateful, intolerant world” in which we live.
“I think the only thing we can do really, as people who do not believe in all this separation and all this intolerance, all we can really do is really try and profess our love for one another,” she said, to rousing applause.
Bragg also took to social media to share his thoughts, and last night wrote: “The horrific anti-Semitic terrorist attack on those gathered to celebrate Hannukah on Bondi Beach is shocking. My thoughts are with the Jewish community in Sydney and all those who have been affected by this inexcusable act of violence.”
Troye Sivan speaks out following shooting at Bondi Beach in Sydney:
“My heart is broken. Thinking tonight of the victims and their families, the Bondi and wider Sydney communities, and for every Jewish person in this country.” pic.twitter.com/2yloAN0ITm
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) December 14, 2025
Garbage also took to Instagram on Sunday to decry the “vile” attack, sharing that six of their own “beloved and close family members were at Bondi Beach just a few hours before this horrendous incident took place”.
“What kind of world we’re living in right now? Innocent people were targeted while celebrating life and faith,” their post read. “This should never happen to anyone, anywhere. My heart is with the Jewish community in Bondi, with the victims, the injured, and the families whose lives are forever changed.”
“This is what we stand against,” they added. “Hatred. Racism. Division. Violence in all its forms. There is no place for hate or brutality in our society. We must not allow this horror to be used to divide us. Let it remind us to stand closer and tighter with each other, with love, shared feeling, shared humanity, and for each other.”
The post’s caption went further, stating: “Fuck all this vile anti-Semitism. Fuck Islamophobia. The killing has to stop. It is insane and wildly cruel. We have to find a way forward. We simply can’t go on hurting one another like this.”
Both Manson and Bragg have been vocal in their support of Palestine, and each spoke out earlier this month about their fears for the Palestine Acton prisoners on hunger strike in the UK. Bragg has also showed solidarity with recent new single ‘Hundred Year Hunger’, and held a ‘Days Like These’ Palestine benefit concert in London back in September.
Other artists speaking about after the shooting included Troye Sivan, who said: “The Australian Jewish community – my community – suffered a terrorist attack tonight, on the first night of Chanukah, on Bondi Beach.
“My heart is broken. Thinking tonight of the victims and their families, the Bondi and wider Sydney communities, and for every Jewish person in this country. This is not who we are as Australians. Sending so much love to all.”
Australian singer Kylie Minogue wrote simply, “My heart is with you Bondi”.
People pay respects at Bondi Beach https://t.co/Hm6uIgP50P
— Reuters (@Reuters) December 15, 2025
Following the attack, a host of entertainment world figures similarly took to social media to address antisemitism. Over on X, Aston Kutcher wrote: “Anti-Semitic rhetoric is not abstract—it carries a cost, and my brothers and sisters continue to pay it. May this devastation somehow spark a hidden miracle, one our eyes do not yet have the merit to see.”
Rebel Wilson also wrote on her Instagram Story: “Just waking up to the news about what’s happened on Bondi Beach. An absolute tragedy that is the most un-Australian thing to have happen. We shouldn’t have gun violence in Australia, we shouldn’t have anti-Semitism – it’s not us! Thinking of everyone affected by this devastating violence.”
Meanwhile, Gal Gadot shared: “My heart is shattered. Following the anti-Semitic terror attack on Bondi Beach, Australia, the grief is immense. … The darkness deliberately struck at a sacred moment of community and hope.”
She continued on Instagram, “It is easy to feel defeated. But let us be clear: our strength is not in despair, but in the light we fiercely choose to create in this terrible void. We must honour the victims not with silence, but by demanding a world where every life is safe, and by choosing empathy and unity above all else.”
When NME sat down with Shirley Manson earlier this year, she conceded that there is “a great sensitivity towards Israel, and rightly so. The suffering that European Jews endured during World War Two has a sensitivity to it – especially in the UK where it’s been ingrained in us to fight against anti-Semitism, which we absolutely should.
“But please just read a history book and try to understand what’s happening here. I’m aghast by how there’s no one advocating for the Palestinians and we’re not supposed to say a word in their defence. It feels like madness to me, a deliberate and chosen blindness.”
