Australian police said seven men detained in Sydney's southwest had ideological connections to the two gunmen who allegedly fired at hundreds celebrating Hanukkah ⁠in Bondi Beach, killing 15 people.

"We don't have definitive links between the individuals who committed these atrocities on Sunday and this yesterday apart from potential commonality in some thinking, but no associations at this stage," New South Wales state police deputy commissioner Dave Hudson told ABC Radio on Friday.

Investigations were at an initial stage, Hudson said, adding one of the locations the group was planning to visit on Thursday was Bondi.

Islamic State has called the Bondi mass shooting a "source of pride" in an article published on the group's Telegram channel, though it did not explicitly claim responsibility.

The police linkage of the seven arrests with the Bondi Beach shooters came as a man credited with saving lives for wrestling a gun from one of the alleged attackers during the mass shooting received a cheque for more than A$2.5 million on Friday, after tens of thousands of people contributed to a donation website.

Ahmed al Ahmed hid behind parked cars before charging at one of the gunmen from behind, seizing his weapon and knocking him to the ground.

Ahmed suffered gunshot wounds after apparently being fired on by a second perpetrator and remains in hospital after undergoing surgery.

Ahmed, a Muslim father-of-two, was presented with an oversized cheque at his St George hospital ⁠bed by Zachery Dereniowski, a social media influencer and co-organiser of the GoFundMe page, videos posted online showed.

More than 43,000 people worldwide contributed to the fundraising, including billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman who gave A$99,999 and shared the fundraiser on his X account.

When handed the cheque, Ahmed asks, "I deserve it?" to which Dereniowski says "every penny", the video shows.

When asked what he would say to the people who donated, Ahmed said: "To stand with each other, all human beings. And forget everything bad ... and keep going to save life."

"When I saved the people I [did it] from the heart because it was a nice day, everyone enjoying celebrating, with their kids, woman, man, teenager all, everyone was happy and they ⁠deserve, they deserve to enjoy,” he said, raising his uninjured fist in the air.

“This country [is the] best country in the world, best country in the world, but we’re not going to stand and keep watching – enough is enough. God protect Australia. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie.”

The tobacco store owner did not say what he planned to do ‍with the money.

Ahmed, 43, left his hometown in Syria's northwest province of Idlib nearly 20 years ago to seek work in Australia. (Reuters)