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As the nation accepts the deadly attack on a Jewish holiday event in Sydney’s Bondi Beach, which left 15 people dead, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a national gun buyback scheme.

The plan was described as the nation’s largest gun buyback since 1996, the year of the Port Arthur massacre on Tasmania, Australia’s deadliest mass shooting in modern history, and as the nation’s largest gun buyback since 1996, according to Albanese. Authorities will now purchase surplus, newly-banned, and illegal firearms.

“As of right now, there are more firearms in Australia than there were prior to Port Arthur. There are currently more than four million firearms in the nation, according to Albanese, who spoke at a news conference on Friday.

“No one needs to own a gun,” declares the statement. And he claimed that someone in suburban Sydney doesn’t need to own six because the horrific events at Bondi demonstrate how necessary it is to remove more weapons from our streets.

According to Albanese, the scheme’s states and territories will have the authority to collect the weapons and process payments for surrendered firearms. Then, federal police will be in charge of their destruction.

“We anticipate that this scheme will result in the collection and destruction of hundreds of thousands of firearms,” said Albanese.

Australia has one of the lowest gun homicide rates in the world, thanks to some of the strictest gun laws in the world.

After a lone gunman, armed with semiautomatic weapons, nearly 30 years ago, killed 35 people at the tourist destination in Port Arthur, restrictions were tightened.

Authorities immediately immediately launched a significant gun amnesty and buyback scheme that removed more than 650, 000 newly-prohibited firearms from circulation following the massacre shocked the nation.

We must do more to combat this vile scourge, according to the statement.

The Sydney shooting that occurred on Sunday, when two attackers, identified as father and son Sajid Akram and Naveed Akram, carried out a shooting spree that killed 15 people, has had a similar harrowing effect on Australian society as the Port Arthur massacre, which prompted self-reflection.

According to Albanese, “Islamic State ideology” was used to inspire 50-year-old Sajid, who was shot dead at the scene, and 24-year-old Naveed, who were both charged with “terrorism” and murder after he awoke from a coma on Tuesday.

Since the Hamas-led attacks on Israel and Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, Albanese announced tougher hate speech laws on Thursday as he acknowledged the nation had experienced a rising tide of anti-Jewish hate.

One of the worst mass murders that this country has ever witnessed, according to Albanese, occurred on Sunday as a result of rising anti-Semitism in Australia.

He claimed that while it was an attack on the Jewish community, it also targeted the Australian way of life.

“Australians are shocked and enraged. I’m furious. It is obvious that we must do much, much more, to stop this evil plague, he continued.

One week after the mass shooting, the prime minister made an announcement on Friday that Australia will hold a national day of reflection on Sunday.

At 6:47 p.m. (07:47 GMT), Albanese advised Australians to “light candles” on December 21 for “exactly one week since the attack occurred.”

He told reporters, “It’s a moment to pause, reflect, and affirm that hatred and violence will never define who we are as Australians.”

In another act of condolence for the dead, hundreds of people plunged into the ocean off Bondi Beach earlier on Friday.

In the gentle morning swell, swimmers and surfers bobbed into a circle, splashing in the water and bursting with emotion.

Security consultant Jason Carr told the AFP news agency, “They slaughtered innocent victims, and today I’m swimming out there and being part of my community once more to bring back the light.”

“We’re still burying bodies,” the statement read. But “I just thought it was important,” the 53-year-old said.

He said, “I’m not going to let someone so evil, someone so dark, prevent me from doing what I enjoy doing.”

The signing of the trade agreement between the EU and the South American bloc Mercosur will be postponed until January, further delaying a deal that had been in the negotiation process for about 25 years, according to European Commission spokesperson Paula Pinho’s confirmation on Thursday.

Ursula von der Leyen, the commission’s president, was scheduled to sign the deal in Brazil on Saturday, but the majority of EU members were unwilling to do so.

Von der Leyen, Antonio Costa, president of the European Council, and Giorgia Meloni, prime minister of Italy, reached a delay deal, according to the Associated Press, with the condition that Italy would vote in favor of it in January. von der Leyen, Costa, made the announcement at a summit on Thursday.

As he arrived for the summit on Thursday in Brussels, French President Emmanuel Macron demanded more concessions and discussions in January. He had also pushed back against the agreement.

Macron claimed that he has been in discussions with Irish, Italian, Polish, Belgian, and other colleagues about putting off the signing.

The French leader said that “farmers already face a lot of challenges.”

The EU’s largest trade pact would include tariff reductions for Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay.

However, the deal’s critics, particularly those from France and Italy, fear a surge of cheap commodities that could hurt European farmers. Germany, Spain, and Nordic nations claim that it will boost exports hit by US tariffs and reduce China’s dependence by securing access to important minerals.

According to Brazil’s president Lula, Italy’s prime minister Meloni pleaded for “patience.”

In a time of high global trade tensions, the EU-Mercosur agreement would establish the largest free-trade area in the world and encourage the 27-nation European Union to export more goods, including cars, tools, wines, and spirits to Latin America.

Germany, Spain, and the Nordic nations were “all lobbying vigorously in favor of this deal,” according to Al Jazeera’s Dominic Kane, who was reporting from Berlin. The French and Italian governments, however, were divided over their strong farming sectors.

Their concern is that the Mercosur countries’ far-priced imports, such as poultry and beef, could be overtaken by them, Keane said.

No signing is expected in December, then. He continued, “I’m hoping there will be a signing in the middle of January.”

Given that the powerful forces in this debate were pitted against one another, “but there must be a question now about what might happen between now and mid-January,” he continued.

According to a spokeswoman for the European Commission, Mercosur nations were made aware of the decision, and Brazil delayed signing the deal to give its EU partners a now-or-never ultimatum on Thursday to allow time to win over the disgruntled.

Italy’s Meloni had asked for “patience,” according to Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and that the country would eventually be ready for the deal.

Farmers in Brussels slowed roads and started fireworks in protest of the deal, prompting police to use tear gas and water cannons in response.

As demonstrators burned tyres and a fake wooden coffin bearing the word “agriculture,” some farmers who were traveling to the Belgian capital from as far away as Spain and Poland brought potatoes and eggs to throw.