Passover Massacre

This Seder night, remember the victims of the Passover massacre (also known as the Netanya bombing), which occurred on Seder night 2002 at the Park Hotel in Netanya 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.

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. 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.

While in English language media, the Palestinian Authority condemned the attack ... 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."

Most of the victims were senior citizens (70+). 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.

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