Passover massacre

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Passover massacre
Location	Netanya
Target(s)	Park Hotel's Jewish guests
Date	March 27, 2002
Attack Type	suicide bomber
Fatalities	30
Perpetrator(s)	Hamas

The Passover massacre (also known as the Netanya bombing) was a Palestinian suicide bombing in the Park Hotel at Netanya on March 27, 2002. The attack killed 30 Israeli civilians and triggered Operation Defensive Shield.

The attack occurred on the night of March 27, when the traditional Jewish holiday of Passover was celebrated. The Park Hotel in Netanya held a big Passover dinner for its 250 guests, especially elderly Jews who didn't have family and relatives, in the ground-floor dining room. A Palestinian suicide bomber passed a security guard at the hotel's entrance, walked through the lobby passing the reception desk and entered the hotel's dining room where he detonated an explosive device he carried in a suitcase. Twenty-eight people were immediately killed, and about 140 were injured, of whom 20 were seriously injured. Two of the injured later died from their wounds. Many of the victims were Holocaust survivors.

The Arab-Israeli conflict in 2002

Events Passover massacre Defensive Shield Battle of Jenin Siege of the Church of the Nativity Patt junction massacre
v • d • e

1 Hamas claims responsibility
2 Palestinian Authority's reaction
3 Israel's reaction
4 Victims
5 References
6 See also
7 Audio and Video

[edit] Hamas claims responsibility

Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. The bomber was identified as Abdel-Basset Odeh, a 25-year-old from the nearby West Bank city of Tulkarem. Odeh claimed that the attack was in response to a series of Israeli incursions into Palestinian refugee camps earlier in the month that resulted in several Palestinian civilian deaths.^[1] Hamas would later claim that the attacks were specifically designed to derail momentum from a recently announced peace offer from the Saudi government at the Beirut Summit.^[2]

[edit] Palestinian Authority's reaction

While in English language media, the Palestinian Authority condemned the attack saying "The leadership strongly denounces Netanya operation against Israeli civilians and decides to prosecute those involved or responsible,"^[3] in Arabic it glorified the "shahid": on January 21, 2003, the official PA daily newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida published a report saying "the Tulkarm Shahids Memorial Soccer Championship tournament of the Shahid Abd Al-Baset Odeh began with the participation of seven top teams, named after Shahids who gave their lives to redeem the homeland. Isam, the brother of the Shahid, will distribute the trophies." ^[4]

[edit] Israel's reaction

In his response to the Saudi initiative adopted at the Beirut Summit, Foreign Affairs Minister of Israel Shimon Peres noted that "... the details of every peace plan must be discussed directly between Israel and the Palestinians, and to make this possible, the Palestinian Authority must put an end to terror, the horrifying expression of which we witnessed just last night in Netanya."^[5]

In the wake of the attack, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his cabinet ordered the immediate recruitment of 20,000 reservists in an emergency call-up and the following day launched Operation Defensive Shield. (See also: Battle of Jenin 2002.)

Keis Adwan, the head of the suicide bombing network in northern Samaria responsible for the massacre was killed on April 17, 2002 during Operation Defensive Shield after the IDF and the Yamam caught up with him in Tubas. In May 2002, Israeli forces arrested the mastermind behind the attack, Abbas al-Sayed. On September 22, 2005, al-Sayed was convicted of the Passover attack and also of ordering the May 2001 bombing of a Netanya mall. He received 35 life sentences for each murder victim and additional time for those who were wounded.

In July 2005 Netanya was hit by a bomber again, this time one dispatched by Islamic Jihad. Five were killed and dozens wounded.

[edit] Victims

Most of the victims were senior citizens (70+). Many of them were Holocaust survivors. The oldest victim was 90 and the youngest was 20 years old. A number of married couples were murdered as well as a father together with his daughter. One of the victims was a Jewish tourist from Sweden that visited Israel for the passover.^[6]

**Victims**
Name	Age	Hometown
Shula Abramovitch	70	Holon
David Anichovitch	70	Netanya
Avraham Beckerman (Sgt.-Maj.)	25	Ashdod
Shimon Ben-Aroya	42	Netanya
Frieda and Alter Britvich	86 and 88	Netanya
Idit and Andre Fried	Both 47	Netanya
Miriam Gutenzgan	82	Ramat Gan
Amiram Hamami	44	Netanya
Perla Hermele	79	Stockholm, Sweden
Dvora and Michael Karim	73 and 78	Netanya
Yehudit and Eliezer Korman	70 and 74	Ramat HaSharon
Marianne Myriam Lehmann Zaoui	77	Netanya
Lola Levkovitch	70	Jerusalem
Sarah Levy-Hoffman	89	Tel-Aviv
Furuk Na'imi	62	Netanya
Eliahu Nakash	85	Tel-Aviv
Chanah Rogan	90	Netanya
Irit Rashel	45	Moshav Herev La'et
Clara Rosenberger	77	Jerusalem
Yulia Talmi	87	Tel-Aviv
Sivan (St.-Sgt.) and Ze'ev Vider	20 and 50	Moshav Bekaot
Eva and Ernest Weiss	75 and 80	Petah Tikva
Anna and George Yakobovitch	76 and 78	Holon