Bondi Beach shooting survivor recalls 'begging God to be saved' as she shielded her baby from the gunshots - 'I was fearing for our lives'

Recounting how she was celebrating the Hanukkah festival with her baby boy before the horrific ordeal, Chavi said: "I was chatting to my friend right by the petting zoo, and suddenly I hear what I thought was fireworks.

"I've never heard gunshots before in my life, and I look up to the sky and it's a beautiful blue sky, and I'm thinking, that doesn't look like fireworks.

"And then I hear everyone screaming 'down, down!', and we as the Jewish community have our own local security group, and I remember seeing them motioning for all of us to get down, and thank God I happened to be holding my baby.

"Ten minutes before he was in the pram, but then I got him a balloon, and so I was holding him.

"And then I just shoved him and myself onto the ground and put myself over my baby as a human shield, protecting him, whilst we were sitting ducks and bullets were flying."

Stressing that the Hanukkah festival was a celebration "aimed at children", she added: "This was a festival for kids. All of the people that were at the Hanukkah festival, which is a celebration of love and light and lots and lots of children.

"And so all of the children and their guardians, their parents were there and different community members who just wanted to come together to celebrate the festival, and it was complete chaos."

Noting that her baby was severely distressed by the attack, Chavi told GB News: "I was very focused on shielding and protecting my baby, and my baby is screaming his head off.

"His face is red, there's sweat dripping down him, and there's grass and mud going all over him. And I'm trying to shield him.

"But at the same time, I don't want to suffocate him. It's very, very hot, it's 29C, so I don't want to suffocate him.

"I'm trying to protect him, and also just thinking the whole time what is going on? Is this even real? I was in complete shock and disbelief."

Sharing a photo with GB News taken just minutes before the attack started, Chavi recalled how the joy of the festival very quickly turned to horror and fear.

Chavi said: "The photo that I shared with you was actually taken at 6:39pm, and I think the shooting began at 6:47pm, so very, very close, under 10 minutes from the photo, smiling, my baby all happy with his balloon, we're on the ground, fearing for our lives.

"I was in disbelief, in shock. At the same time, as a believer, I was saying Psalms, I was saying praise to God, begging him to save me and my baby's life. And I'm also thinking, where is the police? What's taking so long? That's what was also going through my brain.

"And I also couldn't contact my husband or any of my loved ones because my phone was in the pram, so I didn't even have any form of communication.

"I heard people calling their loved one saying goodbye, and I'm thinking I can't contact anyone.

"I honestly was just focused on protecting my baby and I had a tunnel vision to protect my baby."

Hailing the civilians who stepped in to protect others and lost their lives as a result, Chavi revealed that her friend's father was one of the people who attempted to stop the shooters in their attack.

Chavi said: "Obviously the police and the local Jewish security group were not prepared for this attack at all, we had to have the civilians come in and save the day.

"My friend's father, Van Morrison, who was murdered in cold blood, there's a video of him taking a brick and trying to throw it at the terrorists.

"And people like him and that other Syrian man who came in, they were the ones who really saved the day."

She added: "After the craziness, it went silent, and then people were screaming, 'is anyone here injured?, and me and my friend that was next to me, we just ran and we saw my friend's sister in law who was had blood on her shirt, and she was holding her little eight-week-old baby and had her little seven year old son, who was still clinging onto his hot dog from the fair.

"And me and my friend took these two children to shelter, and we had no idea that their father was also murdered in cold blood. I know a lot of the people that were murdered and it's very close to home."

Admitting she is "not shocked" at the terror attack, Chavi hit out at the Australian Government for "not protecting civilians" from the "extremism on our streets".

She stressed: "Unfortunately, I wasn't shocked about this attack. I never thought that obviously I would experience it, but for me, this was an attack against the Jewish people.

"And I want to make that very, very clear. This was not an attack against Aussies, this was an attack against Jews.

"And for us as the Jewish community, the writing was literally on the walls. Just a year ago, my brother, who is a Rabbi, his home was vandalised with very negative slurs for being a Jew.

"Whatever is going on in the Middle East should not be impacting citizens across the world, and this was an attack against our community.

"And we feel very upset with our current Government, because we feel that they have not protected us and that they have allowed this bad behaviour, this radicalisation and extremism to be on our streets.

"And I am all for all different types of religions, ethnicities, people, but I should be able to go to my Hanukkah celebration, my Christian friends should be able to go to their Christmas celebrations - my Buddhist friend, my Sikh friend, my Muslim friend.

"Everyone should be able to practice their religion in peace, and when we allow this extremism on our streets, this is what's going to happen."

Concluding that although the Jewish community are currently "in mourning" following the attack, they will use this horror as a way to channel "only positive things".

She said: "The Jewish community, we are mourning, we are in disbelief, we are in shock, and there's a lot of sadness in our heart, but we are going to channel all of these negative emotions into only positive things.

"We are a people of peace. We are a people of love. We are a people of kindness.

"And we just want to add positivity and light into this world. This is what the festival of Hanukkah is, every night we add in light, we have eight days of increasing in light.

"So for us, the Jewish response is to add more light into this world, to dispel the darkness, to increase in acts of goodness and kindness, and to make this world a better place."