A mother who shielded a young girl during the Bondi Hanukah attack has rejected the label of hero, saying she was simply a parent trying to protect children. Jessica Rozen, who attended the festival with her family on the first night of Hanukah, described the chaotic scene as a gunman opened fire.
Rozen was searching for her three-year-old son when she heard loud bangs. She saw someone fall, blood, and people screaming. Realising it was not fireworks, she grabbed a terrified little girl who was crying for her parents. 'I run and grab her,' Rozen wrote in an account published online. She lay on top of the girl behind a row of chairs, telling her, 'I've got you.'
During the attack, which lasted less than six minutes, Rozen used her phone to film the gunman on a footbridge. She saw a woman shot nearby, with visible brain matter. Rozen herself was hit in the shoulder and found pieces of brain in her hair. Despite her injuries, she stayed calm for the child, who would not give her name.
Rozen's husband and daughter escaped unharmed, and her son was later found safe with his grandmother. The family was reunited after the attack. Rozen, who has been called a hero by many, insists she is not. 'I'm a mum who was at a Hanukah event,' she said.
