In a world saturated with violence and political unrest, it is crucial to applaud the actions of Australian-Syrian fruit shop owner, Ahmed al-Ahmed’s whose bravery should be an international wake-up call.
On December 14, 2025, two terrorists targeted a Hanukkah celebration that resulted in 42 injuries and 15 deaths, including a child. Yet, the death toll would have been far higher if not for the bravery of al-Ahmed, a Syrian immigrant and fruit shop owner who single-handedly disarmed a gunman.
In a viral video, al-Ahmed was filmed tackling the gunmen and grabbing his rifle despite being unarmed himself. Since the event, al-Ahmed has been hospitalized due to his injuries and has been personally thanked by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for his heroism.
In an age of apathy and polarization, collective humanity has become rare, and it seems we have forgotten the lessons taught by history that have shaped societal progress. Consider the actions of al-Ahmed, who has become a recognized hero for his bravery in fighting a fellow muslim to save the lives of innocent Jewish people. His actions expose both what humanity should look like and how rare it has become.
al-Ahmed’s bravery was not founded on incentive but from a place of humanity. The shooting took place on the first night of Hanukkah, an annual Jewish holiday that celebrates resilience and light during the Winter solstice. The season of Hanukkah is a memorial of the long-lasting suffering against the Jewish population following generations of exile and displacement.
For generations, both the Muslim and Jewish communities have been pitted against one another in the fight for religion, land and basic human rights. For the Jewish population, this suffering was furthered by the orchestrated execution of six million Jews at the hands of Hitler and the Nazi Party during World War II, also known as the Holocaust.
Following the end of the war, protective legislation was enacted to ensure that such crimes would be put to rest and to establish international peace. The dissolution of the War catalyzed research that would assess violence, genocide and dehumanization, eventually becoming commonplace conversation in all aspects of life. Many survivors of the Holocaust found refuge in the United States and Canada, and others fled to the newly established state of Israel, otherwise known as the native land of Palestinians.
The irony of the conflict stems from the justification of Western powers, claiming terra nullius (Latin for nobody’s land), an international legal principle that validates the occupation of “unused” land in justifying colonialism.
The present conflict between Israel and Palestine began with the creation of the State of Israel and the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank by Western sovereignty following the events of World War II. As a result, thousands of Palestinians were displaced from their indigenous lands to make space for Israeli settlers. Time has fueled resentment on both sides of the conflict, which has resulted in the total destruction of Gaza; over 90 per cent of Gazan infrastructure destroyed, and thousands of Jewish and Muslim lives lost.
The dominant rhetoric presents a clear and definitive “side” that victimizes Jewish people whilst simultaneously solidifying a caricature of terrorism where Muslim or “brown bodies” are the aggressors. This narrative is ever-present and has continued to grow in a way that further promotes a binary that has been propagated since the turn of the century, following the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
In a world where headlines report rising death tolls with numbing regularity, humanity has been reduced to statistics rather than stories. Violence is consumed through screens, dehumanizing human lives as some commodity; outrage is fleeting, and suffering is too often filtered through politics rather than compassion.
Against this backdrop, Ahmed al-Ahmed’s actions stand in stark contrast to the indifference that has come to define our global moment. His bravery forces a reckoning: not with geopolitics or ideology, but with our capacity for empathy. He did not ask who deserved saving, nor did he act in defense of a flag, a faith, or a cause. He acted because lives were in danger, and because protecting them was the human thing to do. At a time when division is rewarded and apathy feels easier than action, al-Ahmed reminds us that moral clarity still exists, and that it often appears in the hands of ordinary people who refuse to look away.
Olivia Irene Dean is a French-Arab researcher and writer whose work focuses on violence, genocide, and the ongoing war in Gaza. She is currently completing a Master’s degree in Human Rights and Social Justice at Thompson Rivers University (TRU).