NSW's homicide commander has declared criminals have "thrown the rulebook out the window" after two women were shot dead in south-west Sydney in a targeted "assassination".
The women, identified as 48-year-old mother Lametta Fadlallah and 39-year-old Amy Al-Hazzouri, died after their car was sprayed with bullets near a home on Hendy Avenue, Panania about 10pm on Saturday night.
NSW Police Force Detective Superintendent Danny Doherty has said the shooter has broken an unwritten rule, stooping to a new low of targeting women.
He said the shooting was an "organised, methodical murder" aimed at killing Fadlallah, a mother-of-two.
"This is an appalling attack on two women who have lost their lives in a planned murder, an assassination really, that's happened in a public street in Sydney," Doherty said.
"It's not acceptable by any standards. It's unprecedented, really and we're determined to get the answers for the family.
"There used to be an unwritten law with the criminal element that you don't touch family," Doherty said.
"You don't touch women.
"It looks like that rule book has been thrown out the window.
"It shows how low they've gotten at this point, that anyone associated with targets, they don't discriminate if you're male or female."
Police are investigating whether Fadlallah had information about Sydney's underworld that someone possibly wanted silenced.
She had been in a relationship with one of the founding members of a street gang and later in life was also in a relationship with a notorious Kings Cross standover man, who is now also dead.
However, police have described the death of the second victim, Al-Hazzouri, as collateral damage.
Police said Fadlallah was sitting in the back seat of a car outside her Hendy Avenue home when there was a knock on the window from the barrel of a gun and an attacker suddenly opened fire.
Hairdresser Amneh Al-Hazzouri, known as Amy to her friends, also in the back, was caught up in a barrage of deadly fire.
A 16-year-old girl and 20-year-old man were inside the car at the time and were "shaken but not injured" in the attack.
Sources told 9News Al-Hazzouri and her young friends were only there to style the older woman's hair before a night out.
She was rushed to Liverpool Hospital but couldn't be saved.
"It's not acceptable by any standards, it's unprecedented really," Doherty said.
"Everyone should be appalled these two women have lost their lives, and on a public street."
The fight to save the two critically injured women played out outside Peter Aitkin's door.
"They worked on those two women so quickly, it was amazing," he said.
Police said that the shooter's motive was still unclear but that Fadlallah was known to police.
She was the long-time girlfriend of Halal Safi, a standover man and drug dealer who was found dead this year.
Doherty refuted any speculation that the incident could be linked to recent gangland shootings in Sydney, saying police would "treat this on its own merit."
What investigators say could be a network of attackers, left a calling card.
Police believe four burnt-out cars found nearby shortly after the shooting could hold clues to the circumstances surrounding the killing.
The cars, including two Mercedes, were torched on Presland Ave in Revesby, Devlin Drive in Wattle Grove and Elizabeth Crescent in Yagoona.
Police seized security vision believed to show attackers in dark clothing pouring petrol on the cars and making off.
