On this day, 20 years ago, a suicide bomber killed 15 civilians, including four children, and injured 130 others at the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem in 2001.On August 9, 2001, Palestinian terrorist Ahlam Ahmad al-Tamimi led the suicide bomber to the Sbarro restaurant during lunchtime, when the restaurant was packed with customers and pedestrian traffic near the pizzeria was at a peak.
The bomb contained nails, nuts, and bolts in order to maximize casualties.
The victims of the bombing were:
-Giora Balash, 60
-Zvika Golombek, 26
-Shoshana Yehudit Greenbaum, 31
-Tehila Maoz, 18
-Frieda Mendelsohn, 62
-Michal Raziel, 16
-Malka Roth, 15
-Mordechai Schijveschuurder, 43
-Tzira Schijveschuurder, 41
-Ra'aya Schijveschuurder, 14
-Avraham Yitzhak Schijveschuurder, 4
-Hemda Schijveschuurder, 2
-Lily Shimashvili, 33
-Tamara Shimashvili, 8
-Yocheved Shoshan, 10
Chana Nachenberg, an American citizen who was injured in the bombing, remains hospitalized in a vegetative state 20 years later.
To mark the 20th anniversary of the bombing, Meir Schijveschuurder, who experienced the attack as a 17 year old, and his sister Chaya, then 8, dedicated a maternal delivery room last week at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in memory of their murdered family members.
Included in those who attended the emotional ceremony were medical personnel who triaged and treated the siblings after the attack, the hospital said.
“There was a smell of explosives in the air and the patients arrived on stretchers directly from the site, because it was too close to even put them in ambulances. The initial moments were chaotic, it took some time before we were able to realize the extent of the catastrophe and that we were treating multiple siblings whose parents had been killed,” said Chana Smadja, who was then working in the emergency room at Bikur Cholim and is today a senior nurse in Shaare Zedek’s infection control unit.
Earlier this year, Interpol dropped its arrest warrant for al-Tamimi, who orchestrated the Sbarro bombing.
Tamimi was arrested and imprisoned for her role in the bombing and was sentenced to 16 life sentences. However, she was freed in 2011 during the prisoner swap to free captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.
In 2013, the US Justice Department filed criminal charges against Tamimi, who currently resides in Jordan, but Amman claims to lack an extradition treaty with Washington.
However, Jordan appears in the US State Department's "Treaties in Force" document, which states that the two countries have had an extradition agreement since 1995. The Trump administration had offered a $5 million reward for her capture, multiple reports noted.