Bondi Beach survivor recalls getting shot while running toward his family
Community members gather outside of Bondi Pavilion at Bondi Beach on December 15, 2025 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Audrey Richardson/Getty Images)
(SYDNEY) — When shots rang out at a Hanukkah celebration on Australia’s Bondi Beach, Arsen Ostrovsky said he thought it could’ve been balloons popping.
“Because it was the carnival, there were clowns and children’s activities,” he told ABC News. “But then it was just non-stop, relentless — so I knew that we were under attack.”
As Ostrovsky ran toward his wife and her children, who were exposed and closer to the shooting, he said he felt a bullet strike his head.
“I fell down and I remember saying, ‘I’m hit, ‘I’m hit,’ and the blood just started gushing,” Ostrovsky said, with part of his head still bandaged up.
Fifteen people were killed — including a 10-year-old girl named Matilda and an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor — and more than 40 others were wounded in last weekend’s mass shooting at Bondi Beach.
The two gunmen — who officials say appeared to have been inspired by ISIS — were allegedly father and son. The father, Sajid Akram, was killed by police at the scene, and the son, Naveed Akram, was wounded and taken into custody. He faces charges, including committing a terrorist act and 15 counts of murder.
When asked if he has anything to say to the gunmen, Ostrovsky — who was in Israel during Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7, 2023 — said he hopes they face justice and understand they will never succeed in taking away his humanity.
“We’ve seen the horrors of the last two years in Israel, thinking that we would be coming here to a safe place, and then having to flee for our lives,” Ostrovsky said.
Ostrovsky said the actions of people at Bondi Beach, like Ahmed al-Ahmed — a bystander who was seen on video jumping in and wrestling a gun away from one of the attackers — and other members of the public who ran toward the danger, have helped him see humanity in the darkness.
People were “running from the surf, coming from shops, running from a beach to help,” he said.
“That’s what I choose to take,” he said.
ABC News’ Karson Yiu and James Gillings contributed to this report.
People gather during protest on January 8, 2026 in Tehran, Iran. Demonstrations have been ongoing since December, triggered by soaring inflation and the collapse of the rial, and have expanded into broader demands for political change. (Anonymous/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization confirmed on Thursday morning that flights were back in operation over the country, according to a statement carried by Iranian state-aligned media.
Iran issued a notice, known as a NOTAM, on Wednesday closing its airspace to all flights except international civil arrivals and departures with prior permission from Iran’s aviation authorities. The NOTAM was initially extended through 10:30 p.m. ET but then expired.
The NOTAM was issued after U.S. President Donald Trump hinted at possible action against Iran and in support of anti-government protests which have roiled the country in recent weeks.
As of Wednesday, 18 days of protests and a resulting crackdown by security forces had seen 2,615 deaths and 18,470 people arrested, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). Among the dead were 13 children and 14 non-protesting civilians, HRANA said.
On the government side, HRANA said it had confirmed the deaths of 153 members of the security forces.
Another 882 additional deaths remain under investigation, HRANA said.
The HRANA data relies on the work of activists inside and outside the country. ABC News cannot independently verify its numbers.
Protests have been spreading across the country since late December. The first marches took place in downtown Tehran, with participants demonstrating against rising inflation and the falling value of the national currency, the rial. As the protests spread, they took on a more explicitly anti-government tone.
The subsequent security crackdown has included a sustained national internet blackout, which — according to online monitoring group NetBlocks — had been in place for 156 hours as of Thursday morning.
On Wednesday, Cloudflare’s threat-intelligence unit said in a statement that it had “observed Iranian authorities targeting Instagram accounts with tools that perform bulk extraction of follower lists and account activity.”
Estimates of the death toll from the protests have varied, with the internet and communications blackout making it difficult to establish clear figures.
Stephane Dujarric, the spokesperson for United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, told reporters at a briefing on Wednesday, “We’ve seen numbers vary from 2,000 to 12,000. All of those numbers are horrendous, but I don’t have a number to share with you.”
Trump has repeatedly threatened military action against the government in Tehran — which is headed by its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — in response to violence against protesters.
Trump said Wednesday that he had been informed that the “killing” in Iran had stopped and that anticipated executions of arrested protesters would not take place.
The information was coming from “very important sources on the other side,” Trump said during an event in the Oval Office on Wednesday. “We’ve been told on good authority, and I hope it’s true. Who knows, right?” he added.
Asked by a reporter if this means that military action was now off the table, Trump responded, “We’re going to watch and see what the process is. But we were given a very good statement by people that are aware of what’s going on.”
On Tuesday, Trump had addressed protesters on social media, urging “Iranian Patriots” to “TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!” He added, “HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”
Khamenei and top Iranian officials have said they are willing to engage with the economic grievances of protesters, though have framed the unrest as driven by “rioters” and “terrorists” sponsored by foreign nations — prime among them the U.S. and Israel — and supported by foreign infiltrators.
Iranian officials have also threatened retaliatory strikes against U.S. and Israeli targets in the event of any outside intervention.
On Wednesday, a U.S. official confirmed to ABC News that some personnel had been advised to leave al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar due to increased tensions in the region.
Meanwhile, Tehran has signaled an intent to proceed with expedited trials and executions for those arrested during the protests.
The head of Iran’s judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, said Wednesday, “If we want to do a job, we should do it now. If we want to do something, we have to do it quickly,” in a video shared online by Iranian state television, according to The Associated Press
“If it becomes late, two months, three months later, it doesn’t have the same effect,” Mohseni-Ejei said.
Speaking to Fox News on Wednesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi acknowledged that “hundreds” of people had been killed and again characterized the protests as an “Israeli plot” and a “terrorist operation.”
Araghchi said that the protests had died down and that the government is “in full control.”
View of the Cour Napoleon, a historic courtyard in the Louvre Museum and the Louvre Pyramid in Paris, France on November 12th, 2025. (Photo by Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — A fourth suspect believed to be connected to the Oct. 19 jewel heist at the Louvre Museum in Paris has been arrested, according to French authorities.
“Four new individuals were arrested on November 25, 2025, as part of the investigation by the Paris Specialized Interregional Jurisdiction (JIRS) into the burglary committed at the Louvre on October 19, 2025,” according to a statement from the Paris Prosecutor’s Office. “They are two men, aged 38 and 39, and two women, aged 31 and 40, all from the Paris region. These individuals are to be questioned by investigators.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(LONDON and KYIV, Ukraine) — Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared last week to be cautiously optimistic on the U.S. 28-point peace plan to end his invasion of Ukraine, but statements made by his emissaries in the days since then have led some analysts to believe he thinks he can get a better deal.
“I believe that it could also form the basis for a final peace settlement, but this text has not been discussed with us in detail,” Putin told his Security Council on Friday.
Momentum has appeared to be building as U.S., European, Ukrainian and Russian representatives met first in Geneva, Switzerland, and then in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. U.S. President Donald Trump has now said a deal could be “very close” and has ordered his envoy Steve Witkoff to travel to Moscow next week to present the plan to Putin.
But despite the diplomatic flurry and public optimism, many close observers of Russia still doubt Putin is actually ready to take a deal now or sees much need to compromise.
“I see nothing at the moment that would force Putin to recalculate his goals or abandon his core demands,” Tatiana Stoyanova, founder of R.Politik and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center wrote on X.
“He feels more confident than ever about the battlefield situation and is convinced that he can wait until Kyiv finally accepts that it cannot win and must negotiate on Russia’s well-known terms,” Stoyanova said. “If the Americans can help move things in that direction — fine. If not, he knows how to proceed anyway.”
Boris Bondarev, a former Russian diplomat who quit in protest after Russia’s 2022 invasion, also told ABC News he thought it “most likely” that this latest round of negotiations will fizzle out with the combatants still far apart on key issues, as has been the case with previous efforts.
The new 19-point plan negotiated with Ukraine this week is highly unlikely to align with Moscow’s goals, Bondarev said. Even the original 28-point plan that Russia helped draw up with Witkoff “wasn’t fully acceptable to Russia in the first place,” he said, pointing to the Kremlin’s apparent hesitance to commit to the initial blueprint.
“Now it’s even less acceptable,” he said. “So, of course, they would not accept it.”
But Bondarev didn’t rule out entirely that Putin might lunge for a deal that contains many of his demands.
“Of course, we can and we should be ready for any surprises from the Kremlin,” he said. “They can still surprise sometimes.”
The original 28-point U.S. proposal that heavily favored Russia was revised down to 19, according to U.S. and Ukrainian officials, during the Geneva negotiations.
Some of the most unacceptable points to Kyiv have been removed, according to sources familiar with the discussions, including a cap on Ukraine’s army and a war crimes amnesty. But it is not entirely clear what the new plan includes and the most intractable issues, including Ukraine ceding more unoccupied territory remain.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday again downplayed hopes for a deal, saying it was “too early to say” whether the warring parties are close to an accord. Russia’s deputy foreign minister has since said Moscow will not make any major concessions.
Previous rounds of talks have resoundingly failed. And, while the U.S. has been projecting hope, it’s unclear how serious Russia — which has been eking out battlefield gains — is about making peace.
“Putin does not want an agreement,” John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, said at an Atlantic Council event on Tuesday. “The only agreement he wants is diktat — a Ukrainian surrender. Otherwise, he wants to continue fighting.”
“I suspect if Ukraine had accepted those dreadful 28 points, Putin would come back for more,” Herbst said. “He realizes those 28 points reflected great flexibility moving his direction on the part of the United States, and he would say, ‘See what else we can get’.”
Putin’s long march The Kremlin has indicated that the new peace plan was discussed at the summit between Putin and Trump in Alaska in August.
Putin left Alaska with Trump’s endorsement of the “fantastic relationship” between the two presidents, having successfully neutralized Trump’s previous demand he agree an immediate ceasefire and pushing off the threat of more American sanctions, while gaining the prospect of potentially lucrative bilateral economic cooperation.
Despite a nominal commitment to peace talks, as summer turned to fall, Russia only intensified its frontline offensives and expanded its long-range attacks on Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure, according to information released by Russian and Ukrainian forces.
Russian forces have captured some 350 square miles of Ukrainian territory — roughly the same area as the German capital of Berlin — since Trump and Putin sat down together in Alaska, according to data from the Institute for the Study of War think tank.
Putin has for years said that any peace deal in Ukraine must reflect the “new territorial realities” of Russian occupation of large chunks of the country. As Russian troops edge forward, Putin appears to be trying to entrench those territorial realities.
That new territory is a tiny sliver of the roughly 44,600 square miles — nearly 20% — of Ukraine controlled by Russian forces. But despite the slow rate and reportedly high human cost of Russia’s advance, independent military analysts worry it reflects a growing momentum for Moscow.
A high-profile advance around the destroyed Donetsk city of Pokrovsk and an unexpected local breakthrough on Ukraine southern Zaporizhzhia front have further burnished the Kremlin’s propaganda campaign promoting what they claim as an inevitable Russian victory.
Relentless Russian drone and missile strikes continue to kill civilians and wreak havoc on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, particularly the energy grid. Concentrated strikes on power stations and natural gas infrastructure have precipitated rolling blackouts in many parts of the country — including in Kyiv — as winter bites.
Zelenskyy’s government has also been rocked by a corruption scandal that has seen two cabinet ministers removed from their posts and figures close to the president investigated.
Bondarev said he believes Russia is repeating its strategy of delay and obfuscation. Putin is “playing for time,” he said, and “outsmarting” his Western adversaries.
“Putin says we need to remove the root causes of the war,” Bondarev said. “You cannot remove these root causes of the war just by signing some memorandum. You need to work it through. It takes a lot of experts, meetings, coordination — so it may take months. And at the same time, he will be fighting.”
“With each new tiny victory — every new village occupied, every square kilometer occupied — the Russian position will be more and more robust, less and less flexible,” Bondarev said.
Red lines “People’s expectations for how long a process like this will take are wildly exaggerated,” Samuel Charap, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, told ABC News this week.
“I think even in the best case we are talking about months not weeks,” Charap added.
Still, Charap said, the new push by the Trump administration was positive, noting it had jumpstarted negotiations and for the first time produced a framework document that at least included almost all the core issues of the conflict.
“You have to give them credit, they have certainly shaken up the stasis which had set in,” he said. “There are conversations happening that weren’t happening a week ago.”
Ukrainian lawmakers and analysts told ABC News there remains little hope in Ukraine that Putin can be trusted to abide by the terms of any peace deal. That is why Kyiv’s demands for Western security guarantees, NATO membership and more military aid have been so central to the Ukrainian negotiating position.
Still, Yehor Cherniev — a member of the Ukrainian parliament and the chairman of his country’s delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly — told ABC News that the framework established with the U.S. “is a good signal and it’s good progress in our peace negotiations, because before we were stuck.”
But some “red lines” remain, Cherniev said, “as before, about the concession of our territories or of or our sovereignty.” Ukrainian officials have said they want to leave such thorny topics to a meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy at the White House.
“I have doubts that Russia will agree with this,” Cherniev added.
Oleksandr Merezhko, another member of parliament and the chair of its foreign affairs committee, told ABC News he believes “Putin will reject this peace plan and will reiterate his maximalist demands.”
“He is not interested in peace or ceasefire — he is only interested in our surrender,” Merezhko said. “We should insist not on a ‘peace treaty’ but on a ceasefire agreement.”
Zelenskyy has consistently urged more pressure on Russia twinned with more muscular Western military aid for Kyiv. Trump has often threatened a tougher line on Moscow, but — according to Daniel Fried, a former U.S. ambassador to Poland — it is unclear if he is willing to deliver.
“In the end, Trump is going to have to stare down Putin to get his deal in any kind of decent form,” Fried said at an event Tuesday.
But Bondarev said he sees little hope of an imminent change in U.S. strategy, suggesting that any disunity within the administration will only further strengthen Moscow’s hand.
“Western diplomacy has never tried to get the initiative, to first elaborate its own agenda and impose it on Russia,” the former diplomat said. “They only follow what Russia is doing. You can never prevail if you just follow your adversary and let him lead.”
“Trump mentioned that ‘it takes two to tango,'” he added. “But there is someone in every couple who leads and someone who follows.”
