Here is what we know so far about what happened.
How many people were killed or injured?
In addition to 12 fatalities, at least 29 people have been injured, including a child and two police officers.
A man believed to be one of the gunmen was killed and another suspect is in custody in a critical condition.
How did the shooting unfold?
Police were called at about 6.47pm on Sunday (7.47am UK time), as they responded to reports of shots being fired at Archer Park, Bondi Beach.
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said two individuals fired on a "crowded group of families" at the park in a "cowardly act of terrifying violence".
Officers have declared it a "terrorist incident".
One video shows two gunmen appearing to open fire from a small bridge overlooking the beach.
Another video shows large crowds of people on the beach running away as they fled the scene.
Attack 'targeted Jewish people'
More than 1,000 people had been attending an event at Bondi Beach celebrating the Jewish holy festival of Hanukkah at the time of the shooting, police said.
Mr Minns said: "This attack was designed to target Sydney's Jewish community on the first day of Hanukkah.
"What should have been a night of peace and joy celebrated in that community with families and supporters has been shattered by this horrifying evil attack."
The leader of Australia's opposition Sussan Ley said the attack took place as "our Jewish community came together at the Chanukah by the Sea celebration".
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said Jewish people who had gone to light the first candle of the Hanukkah holiday on the beach had been attacked by "vile terrorists".
What have witnesses said?
Witnesses have described the terror and confusion as masses of people fled the beach.
"Thousands of people just like running. And I opened up the back gate to my friend's cafe and just let everyone in," one witness told 9News.
"Pregnant women, women with kids, just everyone's running and just running.
"Like the whole it was just panic. It was pandemonium."
Harry Wilson, who witnessed the shooting, told the Sydney Morning Herald: "I saw at least 10 people on the ground and blood everywhere."
Another witness, called Phil, told 9News: "We just heard what sounded like fireworks. The beach was absolutely packed. And then there were a lot of fireworks going off.
"Then suddenly we saw thousands of people just running this way. So we all just went inside, holed up in the toilets.
"I've got a friend that's holed up in a basement now. Everybody went inside."
Phil said he soon realised the sounds of fireworks were "more than that".
"We're a bit shaken," he added.
'Suspicious items located'
Police said their operation was "ongoing" and a "number of suspicious items located in the vicinity" were being examined by specialist officers. An exclusion zone was in place, they added.
They later said a police bomb disposal unit was working on several suspected improvised explosive devices.
How have politicians reacted?
Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the scenes in Bondi were "shocking and distressing".
He said in a statement: "Police and emergency responders are on the ground working to save lives.
"My thoughts are with every person affected."
Opposition leader Sussan Ley said: "The loss of life from this attack is significant and I join with the prime minister in urging all Australians to follow official advice from police and relevant authorities."
On most days, the neighbourhood around Brown University feels like a place of quiet optimism, swimming against the negative tide.
The shock of a shooting, that has claimed two lives and left eight others critically wounded, will cut deeply here.
Violence feels not just intrusive but incompatible with the spirit of a place that is governed by thought, not threat.
When the university president said "this is a day we hoped would never come", she spoke for the whole town.
Providence, Rhode Island, is a place I know well. My daughter, her husband and their two little girls live there.
It is a college town with a college vibe, the compact campus priding itself on openness - architecturally, intellectually and emotionally.
They rehearse "shelter-in-place" scenarios, as every university does, but they are not experienced at living behind locked doors.
Rhode Island, the smallest state, has one of the lowest gun-death rates in America, zero mass shooting events in 2024.
Earlier this year, the state banned the sale and manufacture of assault weapons, but it didn't include those already owned.
Even in a Democratic, liberal state like Rhode Island, they are struggling to find a solution to America's gun problem.
The age-old constitutional right to bear arms continues to trump the most human of all rights - the right to life.
This is a community that assumes safety, not because it is naïve, but because it has grown accustomed to trust.
College Hill rises in gentle brick and ivy, its narrow streets winding past houses with verandas designed for long conversations.
They take place in hushed tones right now, but if anywhere can find its way out of despair, Providence can.
On the historic street along its east side and in the college on the corner, most people live off hope.
Shabana Mahmood said the dedicated units will be in place across every force by 2029 as part of Labour's violence against women and girls (VAWG) strategy due to be launched later this week.
The use of Domestic Abuse Protection Orders (DAPOs), which had been trialled in several areas, will also be rolled out across England and Wales. They are designed to target abusers by imposing curfews, electronic tags and exclusion zones.
The orders cover all forms of domestic abuse, including economic abuse, coercive and controlling behaviour, stalking and 'honour'-based abuse. Breaching the terms can carry a prison term of up to five years.
Nearly £2m will also be spent funding a network of officers to target offenders operating within the online space.
Teams will use covert and intelligence techniques to tackle violence against women and girls via apps and websites.
A similar undercover network funded by the Home Office to examine child sexual abuse has arrested over 1,700 perpetrators.
Abuse is 'national emergency'
Challenged on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips on the amount of funding and whether it could be effective, Ms Mahmood said it would be a "pilot scheme for 18 months" because "we've never gone into the online space looking at violence against women and girls".
"We'll be setting out more of our proposals on those specifics later in the coming week," she said.
"But I think it is important that the state take some action because, you know, we're not willing to sit back and just accept that violence against women and girls is a fact of life.
"And I think for too long across society, it's just something that we expect is just something that's normal. And we're calling time on that."
The target to halve violence against women and girls in a decade is a Labour manifesto pledge.
The government said the measures build on existing policy, including facial recognition technology to identify offenders, improving protections for stalking victims, making strangulation a criminal offence and establishing domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms.
Read more from Sky News:
Demands for violence and abuse reforms
Women still feel unsafe on streets
Minister 'clarifies' violence strategy
Ms Mahmood went on to say there was a "postcode lottery" for victims and survivors in terms of what response they receive if they lodge an allegation.
"We want to turn that around," she said. "That's why we think it has to be a national programme of making sure that these teams are rolled out across the country."
Labour has 'failed women'
But the Conservatives said Labour had "failed women" and "broken its promises" by delaying the publication of the violence against women and girls strategy.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said that Labour "shrinks from uncomfortable truths, voting against tougher sentences and presiding over falling sex-offender convictions. At every turn, Labour has failed women".
Arguments around freedom of expression, education and ethics have made it a divisive issue and slowed the passage of a bill into law.
How it interacts with faith is another stumbling block for politicians - evident in the division among some parts of Christianity.
"I was suicidal every day, and I was hearing people say here's how living this way, this sort of more conservative Christian way, has made my life better," Simon Burrows tells Sky News.
Struggling with his faith and sexuality, Simon became involved with Living Out, a Christian charity which says it helps "people, churches and society talk about faith and sexuality".
Sean Doherty, one of their co-founders, speaks openly on their website about being same-sex attracted but living in a heterosexual marriage.
For LGBT+ Christians, Living Out promotes abstinence or marrying the opposite sex.
"Living Out was probably the place that my type of church would direct people to engage with questions of sexuality," Simon explains about how he became involved.
But he says he felt the Christian charity's practices were a "type of conversion practice".
"I felt trapped by these feelings of loneliness paired with the feeling that my community thinks that God would put me in hell forever if I didn't do what was being presented as the only pathway forward," he says.
In the draft Conversion Therapy Prohibition (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) Bill [HL] gay conversion practices are defined by two categories: "A: change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity, or B: suppress a person's expression of sexual orientation or gender identity".
Living Out follows the Evangelical Alliance's Affirmations on the Bible, Sexuality and Same-Sex Attraction, which says that congregations are encouraged to "love and welcome all people, whatever their pattern of sexual behaviour".
The affirmations also say those "living outside God's purposes, will come in due course to see the need to be transformed".
Does Living Out ministry director Ed Shaw see how this could be interpreted as asking someone to suppress their sexuality under a gay conversion practices bill?
"If suppression is saying to me, as I think Jesus says to me, you should not be in a same-sex relationship with other men, if that is suppression, Living Out is guilty of suppression in repeating the instruction that Jesus Christ gives to his people that sex is marriage between a man and a woman."
Adding that he has concerns for any legislation proposed: "My biggest worry is that it might stop Living Out from supporting people who are gay, same-sex attracted, who are wanting to live out their Christian convictions."
A government spokesperson told Sky News they are planning to publish a draft bill before the end of the current parliamentary session next spring, adding: "Conversion practices are abuse - such acts have no place in society and must be stopped.
"We committed to bringing forward legislation to finally ban conversion practices, as one of our legislative priorities set out in the King's Speech."
Saba Ali, interim chair of the Ban Conversion Practices Coalition, says governments have taken too long already.
"Recognition of harm is important, but after seven years of unmet commitments, the LGBTQ+ community needs to see action being taken. Conversion practices continue to inflict profound and preventable harm, and every day without a ban leaves people at risk.
"We now expect the government to uphold its promise," she tells Sky News.
The government has reiterated in the House of Commons and in direct statements to Sky News that a bill must not cover "legitimate psychological support" and "respect" the "role of teachers, religious leaders, parents and carers".
Read more:
Tom Daley says 'it's scary how LGBT rights are being dangerously threatened'
Wicked star Jonathan Bailey on growing up gay in school
For Mr Shaw this is essential to the country's principles of tolerance.
"In the UK today, there's a freedom for Living Out to exist and support people like me, and there's freedom for other Christian groups to support other Christians who think it's fine to get married and have sex as gay people."
"I would really worry that some of the legislation being talked about will have the effect of curtailing those freedoms," he adds.
But for people like Simon Burrows, who say they have been harmed by these practices, a bill is needed to safeguard LGBT+ people.
"I would like the next gay teenager going through the steps I've had to walk through... I'd like them to be able to explore their faith and different options, knowing that they won't be punished."
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. Alternatively, you can call Mind's support line on 0300 102 1234, or NHS on 111.
LED lighting in vast glasshouses is enabling berries to be grown all year on a commercial scale for the first time ever.
It means less reliance on fruit flown in from countries like Egypt.
"The LED lighting is the prime reason for successful growing," said Bartosz Pinkosz, operations director of The Summer Berry.
"If it was not a sunny day, the LED lighting would create enough energy for leaves to absorb that energy, take it in and deliver the energy to the berries.
"We are able to have the right sweetness in the berries and the right shape, right size."
There are 36,000 square metres of the greenhouses at the site in Chichester, partially powered by renewable energy and buzzing with bees as pollinators.
And the new strand to the business means year-round work for 50 people.
But while it might cut the food miles dramatically, there's still an inevitable environmental impact when a colossal space is created warm enough for pickers to wear short sleeves in winter.
Dr Tara Garnett, director of food systems platform TABLE, said: "You're going to need a lot of heat and you're going to need a lot of light in order to reproduce those summer growing conditions so everything hinges on the energy source you're going to be using.
"And when we look at the UK self sufficiency levels in fruit and vegetables they are appalling - 16% of the fruit we consume is UK-grown, so the vast majority is imported, and when it comes to vegetables we're looking more at 50% or so, so there's a lot more we can do to build up, and should be doing."
Around 1.5 million punnets of strawberries are expected to be picked on the site over the full stretch of winter, allowing British strawberries to be eaten this Christmas.
But for some, it's simple - strawberries should be saved for summer, even if it is a much shorter journey from plant to plate.