For many years, Moti Amir tried to block out any memory of the horrors she witnessed during the 2002 seder terrorist attack in Netanya, a coastal town just north of Tel Aviv.
But on the 10th anniversary of what is considered the deadliest terrorist incident of the second intifada, Amir remembers the haunting images in painfully stark detail: Her 10-year-old son jolting backward from the blast of the bomb, the doorpost that fell on him, the shattered window glass that cut into the boy as well as her husband’s stomach. She searched blindly in the dark to find her son amid chaotic screams and frantic running. She says she’ll never forget the pools of blood and rescue workers carrying away bodies wrapped in black plastic bags.
Amir and her family survived. She hopes her recollections, however gruesome they may seem, send a poignant message to the world.
“That I am a survivor and I didn’t let anyone kill me or take my family away from me — I’m stronger in life from this,” she said, while attending a memorial service for victims and family members of the March 27, 2002 attack at the Park Hotel seaside resort.
Just after sundown that night, a Palestinian suicide bomber disguised as a woman walked into the hotel’s lobby with a suitcase filled with explosives. He entered the dining room and detonated the bomb, killing 30 people and injuring 140.
Dubbed the Passover massacre, the attack culminated what was among the bloodiest months of the second intifada, during which 135 Israelis were killed. The severity of the Park Hotel attack led the Israeli government to declare a state of emergency. The next day, the military launched a large-scale counterterrorism operation, Defensive Shield, in the West Bank.
Dalia Falistian, 52, did not find out about the attack until she came home from her boyfriend’s family seder. An only child, she spent the next five hours driving from hospital to hospital in search of her parents. At 5 a.m., her uncle called to tell her that she had to identify her mother and father, Dvora and Michael Karim, at the morgue.
“My mother didn’t look like an angel and my father was cut,” she recalled before bursting into tears. Her thoughts at the time: “My life was finished; I don’t have anybody to come and take care of me.”
OneFamily, a volunteer group that provides material and rehabilitative support to victims and their families, sponsored the memorial gathering this year. OneFamily brings together people who have shared similar experiences. Most victims feel profound alienation from their community after the trauma of a terror attack, said chairman Marc Belzberg.
“Every terror victim will tell you that there’s life before and life after, and life after is one of loneliness and separation from the group,” he said.
Falistian agreed, saying that she’s had trouble finding jobs and making ends meet. OneFamily has helped her financially and emotionally.
“This is my family now,” she said, noting that her caseworker, Batia Weinberg, has invited her to her home for Passover this year.
Corinne Hamami, the daughter of the hotel’s owners, lost her husband, Amiram, in the attack. Amiram, the hotel manager, reportedly saw the terrorist enter the building and tried to chase him. He died of his wounds two days later, leaving Hamami alone to raise their six children.
“It was a very bad situation,” she recalled. “How to wake up in the morning and begin the day? I can’t imagine how to explain this. … You want to die.”
Hamami continues to work at her family’s hotel, which still holds an annual seder.
“We don’t want to close the hotel,” she said. “We just want to show all the Jewish people in Israel and outside that we are strong and that the Palestinians are not victors — we are the victors here.”