JTA — Losing our daughter Malki felt like a horror movie unfolding in real time.

August 9, 2001, was a school vacation morning in Jerusalem. I left early for the drug-technology company I managed, while the house slept. Around 2 p.m., my wife Frimet called my office. Instead of her usual update, she was screaming: “There’s been a terror attack — a pigua. I can’t reach the children.” The line went dead.

Twelve hours of frantic calls, hospital checks, prayers, and mounting dread followed. Malki, 15, our oldest daughter and the middle child, had gone out with her closest friend Michal for a day of teenage fun. Frimet, sidelined by a migraine, had not seen her leave.

At 2 a.m., our two oldest sons phoned from the government pathology center in Jaffa. A municipal social worker had taken them there. The call no parent ever wants to receive. It marked the end of the first chapter of our lives.

Malki was gentle and loving by nature. She adored her blind, non-verbal little sister Haya and helped with every medical emergency and hospital stay. Her empathy came naturally; her smile lit up rooms. That pure, sweet life was ripped away in an instant.

The memories never fade: the funeral, sitting shiva on the floor of our suddenly crowded home, the stream of friends and strangers offering comfort.

Twenty-five years later, the pain returns sharper than ever — layered now with the knowledge that the woman who orchestrated the massacre walks free, defiant, unrepentant, and celebrated. Her name is Ahlam Tamimi. She calls the Sbarro pizzeria bombing “my operation,” says she would do it again exactly the same way, and lives openly in Jordan under Jordanian protection. A $5 million US State Department reward on her head has been in effect since 2018. She is the sole woman on the FBI........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)