Israeli woman dies after 22 years in coma following pizzeria suicide bombing

An Israeli woman has died of injuries she sustained during a Palestinian bombing after being in a coma for the past 22 years.

The Times of Israel reports:

Chana Tova Chaya Nachenberg was 31 years old on the day a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 15 civilians, including seven children, and wounded over 100 others at the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem on August 9, 2001.

She became the 16th fatal victim of the bombing, among the deadliest during the Second Intifada.

Born in New York, Nachenberg was at the pizzeria that day with her daughter, Sarah, three years old at the time, who escaped from the attack physically unharmed.

Nachenberg’s father, Yitzhak, told Hebrew-language media that his daughter died on Wednesday “after almost 22 years of heroism.”

“Her daughter, our granddaughter, is 24 and a half today. My daughter was supposed to be 53 years old in a month. It has been 21 years and nine months since the attack, for which my daughter has been unconscious, in a coma, at Reuth [Rehabilitation] Hospital in Tel Aviv. About three weeks ago, she was hospitalized at Ichilov Hospital, where she died this evening,” he said.

This is another story demonstrating how Jews who simply want to live in peace in the land that God gave to them are targeted and killed by radical Islamist terrorists who seek only the destruction of Israel.

It’s important that we understand the hatred of Palestinian terrorism. The mastermind of the Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing was Ahlam Tamimi, Jordanian woman who helped coordinate the attack and dropped the suicide bomber off at the restaurant. She currently resides in Jordan and is wanted by US and Israeli authorities.

In 2012, Tamimi gave an interview on Al-Aqsa TV where she described her joy at the result of the attack as well as the reaction of Palestinians on the bus with her.

“Afterwards, when I took the bus, the Palestinians around Damascus Gate [in Jerusalem] were all smiling. You could sense that everybody was happy. When I got on the bus, nobody knew that it was me who had led [the suicide bomber to the target]… I was feeling quite strange, because I had left [the bomber] ‘Izz Al-Din behind, but inside the bus, they were all congratulating one another. They didn’t even know one another, yet they were exchanging greetings…While I was sitting on the bus, the driver turned on the radio. But first, let me tell you about the gradual rise in the number of casualties. While I was on the bus and everybody was congratulating one another.”

After hearing an initial report that at least three poeple were killed, Tamimi said:

“I admit that I was a bit disappointed, because I had hoped for a larger toll. Yet when they said “three dead,” I said: ‘Allah be praised’…Two minutes later, they said on the radio that the number had increased to five. I wanted to hide my smile, but I just couldn’t. Allah be praised, it was great. As the number of dead kept increasing, the passengers were applauding.”

She is explaining both her joy at hearing the death toll but also about the reaction from Palestinians on the bus she was on. People were smiling and clapping the murder of Israeli women and children. In total, 16 Israelis were killed that day, many of them children, and 145 were injured.

Far from showing remorse, Tamimi says that she would do it against if she had the chance.

“I do not regret what happened. Absolutely not. This is the path. I dedicated myself to Jihad for the sake of Allah, and Allah granted me success. You know how many casualties there were [in the 2001 attack on the Sbarro pizzeria]. This was made possible by Allah. Do you want me to denounce what I did? That’s out of the question. I would do it again today, and in the same manner.”

This is pure evil.

The world may ignore the evils of Palestinian terrorism and the tragedies of the Israelis victims, but God sees every life lost and every family that is hurt by these evil acts.

We must continue to pray for Israel and the Jewish people.

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