Sydney — When Bondi Beach hero Ahmed al Ahmed ran straight toward one of the gunmen during the attack on a Jewish community gathering to mark the first day of Hanukkah, he wasn't thinking about the risk to his own life. The Syrian-born Muslim, who gained his Australian citizenship just five years ago, told CBS News in an exclusive interview that his only objective was to save innocent lives.

Al Ahmed's remarkable bravery — charging at one of the two attackers during the Dec. 14 mass shooting and wrestling a gun from him — quickly earned him praise as a hero. But it also landed him in a Sydney hospital with multiple gunshot wounds. 

Not long after he was finally released from the hospital, he told CBS News why he, like several others who took action on the day, some of whom were killed doing so, felt as though he simply had no other option.

"I couldn't handle it, to hear kids, and the women, and oldest, and men, screaming and asking for help," he said.

He didn't see anyone else trying to stop the massacre — which left 15 innocent people dead in what Australia's prime minister called an act of antisemitic terror — so he looked for an opportunity, crouching behind parked cars before tackling the gunman from behind.

"My soul and all my everything in my organ, in my body, in my brain, asked me to go, and to defend and to save innocent life," the convenience store owner told CBS News. "I didn't think about it."

As dozens of people gathered for the Hanukkah event, and others on the famous Australian beach, hit the ground to take cover, the gunmen continued taking aim at them. Al Ahmed said the shooter, just a few yards from where he was crouched behind a car, kept shooting indiscriminately at anyone he saw.

"Straight away I jumped on his back, hit him," he said.

Al Ahmed said he shouted at the attacker to drop his weapon, to "stop doing what you're doing."

"I don't want to see people killed in front of me. I don't want to see blood. I don't want to hear his gun, I don't want to see people screaming and begging, asking for help, and that's [why] my soul asking me to do that," he said.

After a brief tussle, he managed to pull the gun from the other man's hands.

"Everything in my heart, in my brain, everything — it's worked, just to manage and to save the people's life."

Asked if, after seizing the loaded weapon, he considered shooting the now-disarmed attacker, al Ahmed said it didn't occur to him.

"I didn't think to shoot, and I don't want to put my hand in blood. I don't think I'm the one who can take life of people."

He also didn't stop to think about the other gunman, who was still on the attack from his vantage point on a nearby footbridge.

"I didn't worry about anything. I was just, my target was just to take the gun from him and to stop him from killing a human being."

Al Ahmed was shot five times as he intervened.

"The one I felt it first was the arm. But after, when we went to the hospital, they told me three in the chest, in the shoulder and two here in the arm."

Doctors have told al Ahmed he may never recover fully from his injuries. There are still two bullets lodged in his shoulder, and he's suffered nerve damage to his left hand that could be permanent. A GoFundMe page set up for him has already raised almost $2 million — funds that will no doubt help with his recovery.

Al Ahmed said he was glad that his quick thinking saved lives, "but I feel sorry still for the lost," and he has no regrets about his snap decision to intervene.

"No, I am proud that I did — I saved innocent people's life. Because if I didn't run and take the gun from the terrorists, it will be disaster, and will be more victims."

As for the praise he's received, including from leaders in Australia, the United States and Israel, for risking his own life to save complete strangers, al Ahmed said to him, there are no strangers.

"I risked my life for innocent human beings," he said. "I can't call them strangers, because they are a human being, like me, like you."

It's a simple message he wants to convey far and wide. 

"What I want to say, for everyone around the whole world, not only in Australia, I want to say please stop the terrorism and stop the hate," he said. "Feel in love with all humanity, whatever religion. We are a human being."

The full magnitude of his actions, and the overwhelming global response they have elicited, may not have fully sunken in. Al Ahmed told CBS News it was still "like I'm in a dream."

He said he feels pride not only in himself, but for his newly adopted homeland.

"I feel warm in my country, here in Australia, with all nationality, with all multiculturalism. This is my life here," he said. "Australia is my country, and I'm happy to give my blood for Australia, and to defend and to save people's lives anywhere."

Asked if he would do it all over again, al Ahmed didn't hesitate:

"Of course, anytime," he said, adding quickly that he hopes it won't be necessary, in Australia, or anywhere else.