As a Jewish Bondi resident, the fear on Sunday night was unlike anything we've experienced. Our beautiful friend Gefen was shot three times with a shotgun and is now fighting in the ICU, after his act of heroism on Sunday night. On behalf of his dad and his family, we are raising money for his medical expenses and rehabilitation - a long road ahead.

This is his story...

The many heroes of the Bondi Hannukah Massacre are slowly emerging, but a question keeps returning - who is the man in the red t-shirt who ran alongside Ahmad al Ahmad?

Gefen Bitton is a 30-year-old Israeli who has been living and working in Australia.

After a long day of hiking in the Blue Mountains, one of Gefen’s favourite pastimes, all he wanted to do was celebrate Hannukah.

Sitting at the benches in Bondi with a friend, he insisted on staying until the last moment until the Channukiah lighting was completed. Little did he know, this decision would change his life.

When the shooting began, Gefen jumped up with his friend and ran, but when his friend looked back just a second later, Gefen had disappeared from sight.

A few minutes later, another friend received a phone call from Gefen’s sister in Israel “My brother just called. He said he’s been shot twice, and then he hung up”.

From there, a search began. With no information about his condition, his whereabouts or whether he had been evacuated, his friends drove down to Bondi trying to find any indication that Gefen was alive, and from there went from hospital to hospital searching for him.

Finally, he was found - already in surgery with severe gunshot wounds.

Over the next two days, Gefen’s dad who had flown out from Israel, with his friends, tried to piece together what happened. Gefen was shot from face on, and using Find My Phone it was found that his last location was closer to the site of the deadly shooting than he had initially been sitting. How was that the case if he had run away from the gunfire?

Then, amongst a group of friends, the missing puzzle piece was found. Someone recognised the guy in a red shirt - the one alongside Ahmad al Ahmad - as Gefen. The friend who sat with him at the event remembered his clothes, his father recognised him immediately.

Gefen had escaped, he was safe, but when he saw the terrorist, he ran into the line of fire to help. He made the decision to put himself at risk to save the lives of others. As Ahmad Al Ahmad heroically jumped on the terrorist, Gefen ran in alongside to confront the terrorist. There, he was shot, fell to the ground, and shot again. Now in the ICU, Gefen’s put his own life at risk with his selfless actions.

Gefen - an unarmed Israeli civilian, living in peace in Australia - made a decision most of us couldn’t even think of. He ran into the face of danger like only a hero does, guided by the values on which he was educated and raised.

A true hero that deserves recognition.