Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing

A Palestinian suicide bombing at a pizzeria in downtown Jerusalem on 9 August 2001 killed 16 people, including seven children and a pregnant woman. A further 130 were wounded. The attack occurred during the Second Intifada.

Attack

At the time of the bombing, the Jerusalem branch of the Sbarro pizza restaurant chain was located at the corner of King George Street and Jaffa Road in Jerusalem, one of the busiest pedestrian crossings in the region. Although not required to do so, owner Noam Amar added extra support columns on the advice of city inspectors.

Ahlam Tamimi, who was charged as an accomplice, scouted for a target before leading Izz al-Din Shuheil al-Masri, the suicide bomber, to the Sbarro restaurant. They arrived just before 2:00 p.m., when the restaurant was filled with customers, "dozens of women, children and babies",

Chaviv Avrahami, who saw the scene of the attack after the bombing, recounted: "I heard a tremendous explosion, and I was thrown up a metre into the air. I knew immediately that it was a bomb attack, and a catastrophic one. There were people – babies – thrown through the window and covered with blood. The whole street was covered with blood and bodies: the dead and the dying." She was 31-years-old at the time of the bombing. Her daughter, who was two years old at the time, was one of the few in the restaurant who was not injured. The family was of Dutch origin.

Perpetrators

thumb|upright|Izz al-Din Shuheil al-Masri, the perpetrator of the bombing. His bandana says "[[Al Qassam Brigades" (), the militant wing of the Hamas movement.]]

Both Hamas and the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine initially claimed responsibility, with Hamas saying that the attack was in response to Israel's assassination ten days earlier in Nablus of the two leading Hamas commanders Jamal Mansour and Omar Mansour as well as six civilians including two children.

The suicide bomber who died in the course of carrying out the attack was later identified to be Izz al-Din Shuheil al-Masri () from the Palestinian West Bank town of Aqabah. Izz al-Masri was 22 at the time and the son of a successful restaurant owner, and from an affluent land-owning family.

The person who constructed the explosives was Abdallah Barghouti. For his part in the bombing and a string of other attacks, in which 67 civilians were killed and 500 injured, he received 67 life sentences on 30 November 2004.

Ahlam Tamimi

Izz al-Masri was escorted to the restaurant by Ahlam Tamimi, a 20-year-old female university student and part-time journalist, who had disguised herself as a Jewish tourist for the occasion. She later commented that she was not sorry for what she had done and does not recognize Israel's existence. "Despite the fact that I'm sentenced to 16 life sentences I know that we will become free from Israeli occupation and then I will also be free from the prison," she said. When she first learned from a journalist who was interviewing her in jail that she had murdered eight children, not just three as she had initially believed, she just smiled broadly and continued with the interview.

Tamimi was released in October 2011 in exchange for the release of captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Aftermath

In response to the attack, Israel shut down the unofficial Palestinian "foreign office" in Jerusalem, at the Orient House.

In 2001, the family of Malka Chana (Malki) Roth, a 15-year-old victim of the attack, founded The Malki Foundation, a charity organization that supports families of children with disabilities. All services and equipment are provided at no cost to the families and people of all religions and backgrounds are eligible for assistance. Her parents, Arnold and Frimet Roth, participated in a mass protest in Europe alongside the families of other terror victims in support of the legality the Israeli West Bank barrier. Arnold remarked, "Do I feel bad about the destruction the fence is causing? I do. But do not compare the murder of my daughter to the inability of a Palestinian to get to work by 9:00 A.M."

The incident inspired the Belzberg family to establish the ONE Family Fund, a charity that provides assistance to victims of terrorist attacks targeting Israel. The husband of Shoshana Greenbaum, the pregnant woman killed in the attack, organized a group called "Partners in Kindness" and writing a column called "A Daily Dose of Kindness". He explained that he made these efforts in attempt to "improve the world".

After the suicide bombing, Palestinian university students at the An-Najah University in the West Bank city of Nablus created an exhibition celebrating the first anniversary of the Second Intifada. The exhibit's main attraction was a room-sized re-enactment of the bombing at Sbarro. The installation featured broken furniture splattered with fake blood and human body parts.

Reactions

Foreign Minister Peres said that "If the Palestinian Authority had acted with the necessary determination and carried out preventive detentions of Hamas terrorists and their operators, the murders today in Jerusalem would have been prevented."

Within the Palestinian Territories, Hamas claimed responsibility for the bombing which it praised as a "retaliation of the Palestinian people" against Israel. but the Palestinian Authority blamed Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon for provoking the attack and stated it held him "fully responsible for what happened. The assassinations, the killings and the terrorism that he has practised and escalated in recent weeks led to this result."

U.S. President George W. Bush expressed condolences and stated, "I deplore and strongly condemn the terrorist bombing in downtown Jerusalem today. My heartfelt sympathies and those of the American people are with the victims of this terrible tragedy and their families." Bush demanded Arafat to "condemn this horrific terrorist attack, act now to arrest and bring to justice those responsible, and take immediate, sustained action to prevent future terrorist attacks." According to the Belgian EU Presidency, "The Presidency of the European Union unreservedly condemns the bombing of a Jerusalem shopping centre today, 9 August. It abhors this cowardly act which mainly claimed the lives of innocent civilians."

2011 prisoner exchange

During the 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange, relatives of the victims of the bombing vehemently protested the release of Ahlam Tamimi, who chose the Sbarro restaurant as a target and drove the bomber to the location. Frimet Roth said in October, "We feel desperate. We beg Mr. Netanyahu to grant us a few minutes of his time and hear us out. In any sane country with a fair judicial system, even paroled murderers are not released without granting the victims' loved ones a chance to address the parole board."

Chaya Schijveschuurder, whose parents and three siblings were killed in the attack, protested with a sign that read, "My parents' blood screams from the grave!" Her brother, Shvuel, vandalized the Yitzhak Rabin memorial and commented, "My opinions are all right compared to [Chaya's] and compared to how she feels about the deal. She was badly wounded in the [Sbarro] attack, she feels that releasing the terrorist is as if she were raped and then the rapist went and murdered her parents and is now being released. For her it's like being raped twice."

References

External links

Suicide bombing at the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem – Israeli MFA (with pictures)
The Malki Foundation. Last accessed 9 August 2006.
Partners in Kindness. Last accessed 9 August 2006.
Gruesome exhibit marks anniversary of uprising. Associated Press, 24 September 2001. Last accessed 9 August 2006.
Arafat closes 'suicide bombing' art show. BBC News. 26 September 2001. Last accessed 9 August 2006.
Photos of the murdered victims