Posts misidentify Bondi shooter as Israeli, share fabricated image
- Published on December 18, 2025 at 08:43
- 2 min read
- By Masroor GILANI, AFP Pakistan
After gunmen opened fire at an event on Sydney's famous Bondi Beach to celebrate a Jewish festival, social media users falsely claimed the attack was carried out by "one of their own". They alleged one of the shooters was an Israeli man named "David Cohen", but accompanying images purportedly taken from his Facebook profile bore errors indicative of AI. Australian media have identified the alleged perpetrators in the country's worst mass shooting in decades as Sajid Akram and his son Naveed.
"Bondi Beach terrorist allegedly turns out to be one of thier (sic) own. David Cohen is from Israel," reads an X post shared on December 16, 2025.
Attached to the post are purported screenshots from his Facebook profile, one of which is superimposed with text reading: "Leaked Facebook profile of the Bondi Beach shooter before it got deleted. His real name is David Cohen and he's Jewish. From Israel!"
Fifteen people were killed and 42 others hospitalised in the shooting at one of the biggest tourist draws in Australia's largest city (archived link).
Police say one of the assailants was a 50-year-old father, an Indian national who had lived in Australia for decades (archived link). He was killed in a shootout with officers.
The other shooter was his 24-year-old son, who holds an Australian passport. He was also shot and remained in hospital under police guard.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has called the attack "an act of pure evil, an act of antisemitism, an act of terrorism on our shores".
The post, and similar claims on Facebook and TikTok, circulated even after Australian media named the gunmen on December 15 as Sajid Akram and his son Naveed.
Naveed was charged with 15 counts of murder after waking from a coma on December 17, as well as committing a "terrorist act" and planting a bomb with intent to harm (archived link).
There are no official reports of Naveed having the alias "David Cohen".
Moreover, there are several indications that the purported Facebook profile was in fact generated with the help of AI.
The image was flagged as containing "strong evidence" suggesting it is synthetic by the veraAI detection tool, available within the Verification Plugin, also known as InVID-WeVerify.
A closer analysis of the image also shows elements that are inconsistent with genuine Facebook profile pages, and errors indicative of AI-generated content.
Words in the profile -- including "People" and "Engage"-- are spelled incorrectly, and an "Add a new friends (sic)" button would normally be found in blue in the top-right corner of the page.
Social media was flooded with misinformation in the wake of the Bondi Beach shooting about the identities of the gunmen and a man who heroically intervened, as well as how certain groups reacted to the attack.
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