When Ahmed al-Ahmed tackled and wrested a gun from an alleged shooter at Bondi beach, he was simply thinking that he “couldn’t bear to see people dying”, his cousin says.

Less than a day later, al-Ahmed remains in a critical but stable condition at St George hospital in Sydney. Since the attack, the 43-year-old father of two young girls has catapulted to international fame and been hailed as a hero by the Australian prime minister, the New South Wales premier and the US president.

Anthony Albanese singled out al-Ahmed at a press conference on Monday, paying tribute to his actions as an example of “Australians coming together”.

“Ahmed al-Ahmed … took the gun off that perpetrator at great risk to himself and suffered serious injury as a result of that, and is currently going through operations today in hospital,” Albanese said.

At least 16 people, including one of the alleged gunmen, were killed in the mass shooting during a Hanukah celebration on Sunday evening.

Extraordinary footage of the scene shows al-Ahmed rushing towards one of the shooters, leaping on to him and wrestling the gun from his hands.

Jozay, a cousin of Al-Ahmed, said he was recovering from his first surgery and had two more to come. “He took a lot of medication, he can’t speak well,” Jozay said after leaving the hospital on Monday evening.

Another cousin, Mustafa al-Asaad, told the Al Araby television network that al-Ahmed intervened as a “humanitarian act”.

“When he saw people dying and their families being shot, he couldn’t bear to see people dying,” he said.

“It was a humanitarian act, more than anything else. It was a matter of conscience … He’s very proud that he saved even one life.

“When he saw this scene, people dying of gunfire, he told me, ‘I couldn’t bear this. God gave me strength. I believe I’m going to stop this person killing people’.”

Al-Asaad said his cousin was an Australian citizen of Syrian origin, from the city of Idlib. After spending an hour with him on Monday morning, he said his cousin told him “God gave me courage” and that he didn’t regret his actions.

Al-Ahmed’s parents, Mohamed Fateh al-Ahmed and Malakeh Hasan al-Ahmed, told ABC news their son was shot four to five times in his shoulder during the altercation. The couple called their son a hero.

The couple had only arrived in Sydney from Syria months prior, and had been separated from their son since he came to Australia in 2006.

Al-Ahmed’s mother told the ABC she kept “beating myself up and crying” when she received the call her son had been shot.

“He saw they were dying, and people were losing their lives, and when that guy [the shooter] ran out of ammo, he took it from him, but he was hit,” she said. “We pray that God saves him.”

According to his parents, al-Ahmed had been having a coffee with a friend in Bondi when he heard the shots ring out. They said he would have done anything to protect anyone.

“When he did what he did, he wasn’t thinking about the background of the people he’s saving, the people dying in the street,” his father said.

“He doesn’t discriminate between one nationality and another. Especially here in Australia, there’s no difference between one citizen and another.”

‘He really is a superhero’

Lubaba Alhmidi AlKahil, the media director for the Australians for Syria Association, visited al-Ahmed on Monday afternoon to deliver a tray of food and a bouquet of flowers. She said he had undergone successful surgery and was recovering, but was still in pain.

“What he did, he really is a superhero,” she said. AlKahil hadn’t met al-Ahmed prior to the tragedy but said the community was “very proud” of him.

“You might not believe it, but while we were watching the news, a lot of us had the feeling that he looks Syrian, he looks really Syrian,” she said. “Then we found, he is Syrian.”

She said al-Ahmed came from a “lovely family” that was surrounding him with care and prayers.

“This is not strange for a Syrian individual, the community is lovely, supportive, with strong bonds. We’ve refused injustice and persecution [in Syria] and it’s not strange that one of us had the feeling: ‘No, I will not watch, I will die to help.’”

For AlKahil, the profound tragedy also brought a sense of fear.

“As Muslims, every time there’s an attack we say to ourselves, oh no, people will say it’s Muslims that are bad,” she said. “We are scared to leave our houses if we’ll be accused.

“But our religion is a religion of peace and we are very peaceful people. This proves that.”