Israel marks 25 years since Hamas suicide bombing at Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem

Israel on Sunday marked 25 years since the Hamas bombing at Jerusalem’s Sbarro pizzeria, which killed 16 civilians and wounded about 130 others.

“On August 9, 2001, a Palestinian Hamas suicide bomber detonated explosives inside Jerusalem’s Sbarro pizzeria, in one of the most murderous terror attack of the Palestinian intifada, murdering 16 civilians, including 7 children, a pregnant woman, nearly eliminating the Schijveschuurder family in its entirety and injuring around 130 others,” the Foreign Ministry said in an X post. “Twenty-five years later, the ones that carried out this massacre still celebrate terrorism and continue to target Israeli civilians.”

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🕯️ On August 9, 2001, a Palestinian Hamas suicide bomber detonated explosives inside Jerusalem’s Sbarro pizzeria, in one of the most murderous terror attack of the Palestinian intifada, murdering 16 civilians, including 7 children, a pregnant woman, nearly eliminating the… pic.twitter.com/HjYveH9dnJ

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee also marked the anniversary of the terrorist attack, mentioning by name American victims Judith Greenbaum, Chana Nachenberg and 15-year-old Malka Roth. Greenbaum, 31, was five months pregnant when she was killed; Roth was an American-Israeli schoolgirl; and Nachenberg, also 31 at the time of the attack, remained in a coma for nearly 22 years before dying of her injuries in 2023.

“May their memories be a blessing,” Huckabee wrote on X.

Huckabee reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to “bringing every last fugitive of this heinous act to justice.” His post directly linked to the U.S. State Department’s Rewards for Justice bounty page for attack planner Ahlam Tamimi.

Roth’s father, Arnold Roth, told JNS last week that he and his wife, Frimet Roth, feel abandoned in their effort to bring Tamimi to justice. Tamimi, who lives in Jordan, was charged by the United States in 2013 and is on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list; Jordan has declined to extradite her despite a 1995 U.S.-Jordan extradition treaty.

“We’re alone in every meaningful sense, fighting powerful people who never, ever, at any stage, say what they actually mean or what they intend to do,” Arnold Roth told JNS. He called the lack of decisive U.S. action “a failure of American values and a failure of the professed commitment to justice.”

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations plans to urge Secretary of State Marco Rubio to make Tamimi’s extradition a priority in relations with Jordan. In a letter shared with JNS, the group said the case concerns “the murder of American citizens abroad, the enforcement of a binding extradition treaty and the principle that those responsible for terrorist attacks against Americans cannot evade accountability.”

The State Department told JNS it continues to press Jordan to hold Tamimi accountable in a U.S. court. Roth said, however, that meetings with U.S. officials have produced no “real momentum toward a resolution,” adding that the case represents “a total failure of two systems that are very meaningful to me: justice and America’s public Jewish life.”

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