Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing

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.[1]

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 pm, when the restaurant was filled with customers, "dozens of women, children and babies",[2] and pedestrian traffic outside was at its peak. Tamimi departed before Al-Masri, thought to be carrying a rigged guitar case or wearing an explosive belt weighing 5 to 10 kilograms, containing explosives, nails, nuts and bolts, detonated his bomb.[2]

The dead included 14 Israelis, one pregnant American, and one Brazilian, all of them civilians. Additionally, 130 were injured. One victim, Chana Nachenberg, remained hospitalized in a persistent vegetative state more than twenty years after the attack until finally dying of her injuries on May 31, 2023.[3][4] She had been 31 years old at the time of the bombing. Her daughter, who was 2 years old at the time, was one of the few in the restaurant who came through the disaster unscathed.[2]

Yocheved Shoshan, age 10, was killed, and her 15-year-old sister Miriam was severely injured with 60 nails lodged in her body, a hole in her right thigh, third degree burns on 40 percent of her body, and a ruptured spleen.[2] According to the testimony of their mother, Esther Shoshan:

I was upstairs with one of my daughters. We had wanted to sit downstairs where it's roomy, near the windows, but it was too crowded. Two of my daughters had gone to park the car. Two others, Miriam and Yocheved, went down to the lower level to get our food.

Then there was an enormous blast. The place went dark. People started screaming: 'Pigua! Pigua!' [Terror attack! Terror attack!] But at first I didn't believe it. People shouted: 'Get out! There may be another blast.' Finally, we ran downstairs. There was a terrible stench. I saw body parts everywhere – here a limb, there a head. The bodies were bloated. There was water everywhere; I have no idea where it came from. I searched for my children.

My two daughters who had gone to the car-park arrived seconds later. The older one came inside and found Miriam and Yocheved. They were on fire. She managed to put out the flames but was then rushed away by rescue workers. I couldn't leave. I was torn. The rescue workers kept dragging me to the door. I'd start to go, then run back screaming, 'My girls, my girls!' I wanted to help them.[2]

Mordechai and Tzira Schijveschuurder, both children of Holocaust survivors, were killed along with three of their children. Two other daughters, Leah, 11, and Chaya, 8, were critically injured.[5] The family was of Dutch origin. During the Holocaust, Tzira's parents were in Bergen Belsen and Theresienstadt. Mordechai's parents successfully hid from the Nazis.[6][7]

According to the testimony of Chaya Schijveschuurder:

The last time I saw my brother Avraham Yitzhak, he was lying on a stretcher in an ambulance. He had a bandage on his face. He was four years old. Now our parents are not alive either. But soon the Messiah will come and all the people that have died, and all the people killed in wars and terror attacks, will come back to life.

We were hungry, so Mommy said we could go to a restaurant to eat. In that restaurant, you have to pay first and only afterwards you sit down to eat. When we were at the cash register, we suddenly heard an explosion. I ran out as fast as I could. I didn't look at anything. I just ran out. A medic, I don't know his name, took me to an ambulance and that is where I saw Avraham Yitzhak for the last time.

I said to him, 'Avraham Yitzhak.' But he didn't say anything. After that they took me on a stretcher to the hospital, and I had to have an operation to remove the screws that entered my liver and leg. I saw a sign on the door that said 'Operating Room' and started to cry. After that I didn't see anything.

In my house, they are sitting 'shiva' right now. My brothers came here with their torn shirts. I asked them 'Why are your shirts torn?' but they didn't want to tell me that my parents were dead. My brothers were not with us in the restaurant. They found me first. After that, they found out that my sister and my brother were dead.

My little sister was always happy. I remember her so well. She used to laugh all day long. On the day of the terror attack she was very happy. Daddy went to the bank, and we went into the restaurant and asked if we could order first and pay later, after Daddy came. They said no – so we went to wait for him at the bank. When he came out, we returned to the restaurant, and that's when the explosion occurred. I loved that restaurant very much. It had very, very good pizza.[8]

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."[9] Naor Shara, a soldier who witnessed the attack, said, "The worst thing I saw, which I think will haunt me all my life, is a baby that was sitting in a stroller outside a shop and was dead. After the explosion, the baby's mother came out of the store and started screaming hysterically."[9]

Izz al-Din Shuheil al-Masri, the perpetrator of the bombing

Both Hamas and the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine initially claimed responsibility,[10] 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.[9][11][12]

The suicide bomber who died in the course of carrying out the attack was later identified to be Izz al-Din Shuheil al-Masri[13] (Arabic: عز الدين شهيل المصري) 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 a man named as Abdallah Barghouti. For his part in the bombing and a string of other attacks, in which 67 civilians were killed and 500 injured, he was handed down 67 life sentences on 30 November 2004.[14]

The shock of this incident inspired the Belzberg family to establish the ONE Family Fund, a charity that provides assistance to victims of terrorist attacks targeting Israel.[20][21]

In response to the attack, Israel shut down the unofficial Palestinian "foreign office" in Jerusalem, at the Orient House.[22] 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."[10]

Within the Palestinian Territories, Hamas claimed responsibility for the bombing which it praised as a "retaliation of the Palestinian people" against Israel.[9] President of the Palestine Liberation Organization and of the Palestinian Authority Yasser Arafat condemned the "bombing attack ... in West Jerusalem and I denounce all acts that harm civilians."[23] 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."[24][9] The following day, the PA claimed that they had arrested two people "in connection with the Sbarro bombing".[25]

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."[10] 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."[23]

According to the U.N. press release, "UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan condemned today's terror attack by a suicide bomber in Jerusalem. He deplored all acts of terror and is deeply disturbed by the terrible loss of life."[10] 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."[10]

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.[26][27] 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.[26] The entrance to the exhibition was illustrated with a mural depicting the bombing. The exhibit was later shut down by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.[28]

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. People of all religions and backgrounds are eligible for assistance.[29] The organization is a memorial to Malka Roth's life.[30] Later, Malka's 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."[31]

The husband of Shoshana Greenbaum, the pregnant woman killed in the attack, responded by organizing 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".[32]

• List of Hamas suicide attacks
• List of Palestinian suicide attacks
• Palestinian political violence
• Malki Foundation
• Israeli casualties of war
• List of massacres in Israel

• 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. The 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