On August 9, 2001, a Hamas suicide bomber entered the Sbarro pizzeria in downtown Jerusalem during the lunch rush and detonated an explosive packed with nails, bolts, and screws. Fifteen people were murdered, including children and two U.S. nationals. More than 100 others were wounded.
One of the terrorists behind the attack was Ahlam Tamimi, a Hamas operative who helped transport the bomber to the crowded restaurant. She later pleaded guilty in an Israeli court and was sentenced to 16 life terms before being released in the 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange. She remains on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list.
Sbarro was not a military base. It was not a government office. It was a pizza restaurant filled with families, teenagers, and children.
That is what the Second Intifada looked like: buses, cafés, restaurants, and shopping areas turned into killing fields by terrorists trying to murder as many civilians as possible.
So when activists chant “globalize the intifada,” and politicians refuse to condemn it, history matters. Intifada is not an abstract slogan. It is tied to a wave of suicide bombings and terror attacks that deliberately targeted Israeli civilians.
The faces of the intifada are not just the terrorists who carried it out. They are the families who never came home.
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© Divuach Ne’eman R”A, 2025
