Tears, flowers and silence: Sydney unites in grief after Bondi horror

Defiant dawn gathering at site by beach where gunmen had opened fire

- Luca Ittimani

Mourners lay flowers at Sydney's Bondi beach yesterday after gunmen killed 15 people during a weekend Hanukah celebration

(BIANCA DE MARCHI/AAP)

As the sun rose yesterday, it revealed thousands of Australians' abandoned belongings strewn across Bondi beach, left behind 10 hours earlier in the rush to escape the slaughter.

Within hours, locals had gathered the bags, towels and surfboards and laid them at the top of the beach for survivors, friends and family to collect as they returned.

Sydney's community came together yesterday, not just to mourn those lost in the deadliest terrorist attack on Australian soil, but to help each other.

At dawn, mourners stared in silence at the ocean and the cars left abandoned on the streets still closed by police, searching for somewhere to direct their grief.

Some left flowers by the surf club neighbouring the park where a Hanukah celebration had been taking place when 15 people were shot dead, allegedly by a father and son working together.

Others laid flowers lit candles at the edges of Bondi's pavilion, which was still cordoned off with police tape.

After the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, laid pink flowers and stood in silence behind the pavilion at 9am, hundreds of mourners focused their grief on the site, at the back gate of the famous building.