| Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing | |
|---|---|
| File:SbarroAfter1.jpg | |
| Location | Jerusalem |
| Date | August 9, 2001 2:00 pm – |
| Target | Sbarro pizza restaurant |
Attack type | suicide bomber |
| Deaths | 15 |
| Injured | 130 |
| Perpetrators | Hamas |
The Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing was a Palestinian terrorist attack on a pizzeria in downtown Jerusalem, Israel, on August 9, 2001, in which 15 civilians were killed and 130 wounded.
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 Israel. Just before 2:00 p.m. on a summer holiday afternoon, when the restaurant was filled with customers and pedestrian traffic outside was at its peak, a suicide bomber 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. Fifteen people were killed in the attack, seven of them children, and 130 were wounded. Among the dead was a family of five (two adults and three children). The death toll would likely have been much higher, except that the building had recently been retrofitted to improve its structural integrity. The building was built with the same "Pal-Kal" construction technique deemed responsible for the Versailles wedding hall disaster less than three months before. Although not required to do so, owner Noam Amar added extra support columns on the advice of city inspectors.[1]
Both Hamas and the Islamic Jihad initially claimed responsibility[2], with Hamas claiming that the attack was in response to Israel's killing assassination of Palestinian militants, including two leading Hamas commanders in Nablus, Jamal Mansour and Omar Mansour, ten days earlier.[3][4][5] Several Hamas members were subsequently captured by the authorities, tried.[citation needed]
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. He 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. Ahlam Tamimi was sentenced to 16 life terms. She later commented that "I am not sorry for what I did" and does not recognize Israel’s existence[6]. The person who constructed the explosives was a man named Abdallah Barghouti. For his part in this and a string of other attacks, in which 66 civilians were killed, he was handed down 67 life sentences in November 30, 2004[7]
In response to the attack, Israel shut down the unofficial Palestinian "foreign office" in Jerusalem, at the Orient House.[8]
After the suicide bombing, Palestinian university students at the An-Najah University in the West Bank city of Nablus created an exhibition celebrating the one year anniversary of the Second Intifada.[9][10] 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.[9] The entrance to the exhibition was illustrated with a mural depicting the bombing. The exhibit was later shut down by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.[11]
