One thing is clear after the release of the interim Bondi terror report – we don’t have the answers. But we now know the questions

If there’s one thing that’s clear from the royal commission on antisemitism and social cohesion’s 155-page interim report, it’s how much about the Bondi massacre remains unknown – and how little of what is known can be shared with the public.

More than a third of the recommendations from the report – which was released on Thursday – were confidential, although the Albanese government plans to implement all of them.

But while the report lacked answers, it gave far greater shape to the questions.

Understanding why and how alleged terrorists Naveed and Sajid Akram allegedly targeted Jews at the Chanukah by the Sea festival on 14 December will be a matter of threading together a thicket of disparate strands. Fifteen people were killed in the attack.

One of those strands is that Naveed had allegedly been linked to Islamic extremism as far back as 2019. Sajid obtained a gun licence and six legal firearms after this, and the pair travelled to a region in the southern Philippines known for Islamic extremism the month before the attack.

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In October 2025, according to police, the pair travelled to a farm in regional NSW for combat training, and filmed videos on their phones proclaiming allegiance to Islamic State.

Only two days before the attack, the pair travelled in their own car to Archer Park at Bondi. CCTV footage is said to have captured them walking along the footbridge in an alleged “reconnaissance” visit.

The commissioner, Virginia Bell, added weight to some of these strands in the report and seemed to discard others.

The entirety of chapter five, which is “concerned with Commonwealth and state intelligence and law enforcement agency activities in relation to the Bondi attack” is confidential – and will remain so until the finalisation of any criminal proceedings.

“Thereafter a public version of the chapter should be released. At that time there is a public interest in as much of the chapter being made public as is consistent with the requirements of national security”, the report notes.

No agency told the commission it was prevented from acting on the attack by the existing legal framework. The possibility of a failure to identify or act on intelligence, however, could not be discounted, though Bell also noted any attempt to answer these questions was likely to occur behind closed doors.