Twenty-five years ago on Aug. 9, 2001, at Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem, 8-year-old Chaya stood in line to order beside her father, sister and brother on a family outing when an explosion ripped through the packed restaurant. Chaya and her sister survived, but they lost their parents and three siblings, including a 2-year-old, in the suicide bombing. Fifteen people were murdered that day, including three Americans.
Years later, Chaya recalls every detail: “Everything went up in flames. There were screams and chaos. The second I got out, medics poured water on me. I was completely burned.”
In the ambulance, she saw her 4-year-old brother lying bandaged beside her, and she kept calling his name, but he never responded. Nurses pulled away the clothing that had melted onto her, and she begged them not to amputate her legs.
She is still living with her injuries. Oct. 7, 2023 brought those traumas screaming back into the present. The sirens from Iran’s missile attacks also reminded her that Israel is a country that never gets to live in constant peace. In the decades since the Sbarro bombing at the height of the Second Intifada, ongoing attacks from Hamas have been responsible for the deaths of more than 1,500 innocent civilians in Israel.
Hamas, along with Palestinian Islamic Jihad—both based in the Gaza Strip—claimed responsibility for the bombing, and their motive has never been hidden.
A Hamas official recently declared on Iranian TV that the group will “never” lay down its weapons and intends to “eradicate Israel as a cancerous growth.” That is what Hamas published in its 1988 charter—long before Sbarro and the Oct. 7 atrocities—and follows while the world still argues over whether it can be persuaded to disarm.
Nothing has changed on the terror front
Hamas declared its position in its 1988 charter, which states that there is no solution to the Palestinian question except to destroy the Jewish state.
Hamas might accept a hudna (temporary truce) while a Palestinian state is established in Gaza and the West Bank, then use that state’s army to continue fighting Israel. Hamas is dedicated to murdering all Jews, describing its “struggle against the Jews as very great and very serious.” The charter cites an Islamic source in which the stones and the trees call out, “O Muslim, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”
Recently, the Israeli government rejected the Board of Peace’s Gaza disarmament plan that allows all of Hamas’s weapons to remain in Gaza. Hamas has said it agreed only to storing its weapons, not to handing them over. The terrorist organization has proven that it can acquire new weapons from outside Gaza and violently seize power, as it did from the Palestinian Authority in 2007.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer stated that “Hamas has a long record of lying, and they’ve broken their word before, over and over.”
Hamas had dug hundreds of miles of tunnels before Oct. 7, but built no shelters for Gazans. When asked, a senior Hamas leader said the tunnels were for terrorists and that protecting the population was the responsibility of the United Nations. Gazans who defy Hamas are imprisoned, maimed or executed. Hamas has even perpetrated sexual violence against its own citizens.
‘May their light continue to shine’
American-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin and five other Israelis were brutally murdered in Hamas captivity. Aug. 10 was the second anniversary of their deaths. The Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., remembered their lives by lighting six candles alongside Shabbat candles: “We light candles in their memory and carry their light forward. May their memories forever be a blessing, and may their light continue to shine.”
On Oct. 7, 2023, the two young red-headed Bibas children and their mother gained worldwide attention following their abduction. With their bare hands, Palestinian terrorists murdered Ariel, 4, and Kfir, 10 months old. The terrorists also killed their mother, leaving their father to survive 484 days in captivity. Their bodies were held for ransom until Israel released hundreds of terrorists and prisoners in exchange for their return.
Ariel Bibas would have turned 7 on Aug. 5. Yarden remembers his son: “I can’t lift you up in your birthday chair, and I also don’t get to see you excitedly open all the presents you would have received. But I hope that up in heaven they’re lifting you up and celebrating your birthday! I’m sure Mom arranged the most beautiful birthday she could for you, just like we did for you at the kibbutz every year.”
In a healing response to the horrific Sbarro suicide bombing, now 25 years ago, the Malki Foundation was established, named after American-Israeli Malki Roth, 15, and dedicated to her passion for volunteering with disabled children. Her sister is blind, brain-damaged and has never spoken a word. The foundation lends equipment, funds in-home care and therapy for families. One-third of the families are Israeli Arabs.
Chaya Schijveschuurder lost five family members in the Sbarro attack. Each of her three children was named after a family member she lost: Rafael for her father, Tzira for her mother, and Hemda for her sister.
Points to consider:
1. When terrorists say they want to kill Jews, they mean it.
The Hamas charter published in 1988 is clear: The terror group seeks to kill all Jews, everywhere. Ahlam Tamimi, the mastermind of the Sbarro bombing, pleaded guilty to organizing the attack and received 16 consecutive life sentences. She was released in a 2011 prisoner exchange for soldier Gilad Shalit, one of 1,027 terrorist prisoners freed for a single Israeli hostage. Senior Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the architect of Oct. 7, walked out in the same deal. Tamimi has since said she would do it again and that her only regret is not having murdered more “Zionists,” children included.
2. Disarmament is not a concession Hamas is willing to make.
Weapons are not a bargaining chip; they are what help Hamas enforce its rule over Gaza and support its goal of murdering Jews. Requiring Hamas to give them up is not a concession; it demands that Hamas stop being Hamas. It will not. A leading Israeli security official has warned that the terror group reads the current proposed disarmament plan as a “political Oct. 7.” Any plan that leaves weapons inside Gaza only postpones the next round of violence.
3. Jewish resilience and shared purpose are reasons for optimism.
Israeli Michal Belzberg, just 12 years old, was hours away from her bat mitzvah party in the United States when the Sbarro bombing was reported. Her family flew back to Israel, went to the hospitals to sit with the wounded and used the money set aside for her party to found OneFamily. One of the injured children they met that week was 8-year-old Chaya Schijveschuurder, and 25 years later, the families remain close. The threat has not receded, but Jewish communities keep responding by building closer connections to each other.
