Donations for the Bondi hero who wrestled a gun off a jihadi terrorist have reached close to $1million.
Ahmed el Ahmed, a 43-year-old father of two and Syrian-born fruit shop owner, sprang on the sho0ter after he opened fire during a Jewish celebration in Australia on Sunday night
Ahmed is currently hospitalised with two gunshot wounds to his shoulder.
Seconds before approaching the gunman, he reportedly told his cousin Jozay Alkanj he was going to die.
‘He said “I’m going to die, please see my family and tell them that I went down to save people’s lives”,’ Mr Alkanj recounted outside hospital on Monday morning, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
‘We needed a coffee,’ Mr Alkanj said. ‘It was then just ten minutes before this happened like that. It was very crazy, we went behind the cars, we were seeing that people were shooting very near to us.’
Moments later, Mr Ahmed was filmed gently creeping through the car park along Campbell Parade to get towards the shooter.
Once within close enough range, he sprinted towards the gunman, finally wrestling the firearm from him.
The gunman, 50-year-old Sajid Akram, then fell backward towards the ground as Mr Ahmed lifted the rifle, aiming it towards the disarmed shooter.
Akram then backed away as Mr Ahmed rested the firearm against a tree before a second bystander rushed the shooter and threw an object at him.
The footage went viral online, prompting a GoFundMe campaign to be launched to raise funds for the hero, who remains under observation in the hospital.
According to Mail Online, the campaign has so far raised close to a $1million across more than 5,000 donations, including $100,000 from US billionaire Bill Ackman.
At least 16 people were killed in Sunday night’s mass shooting, including a ten-year-old girl, with dozens more left seriously injured.