The Dizengoff Center suicide bombing (also Purim massacre) was a Palestinian
terrorist attack
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
on March 4, 1996 on the eve of the Jewish holiday of
Purim
Purim (; , ; see Name below) is a Jewish holiday which commemorates the saving of the Jewish people from Haman, an official of the Achaemenid Empire who was planning to have all of Persia's Jewish subjects killed, as recounted in the Book ...
. The
suicide bomber
A suicide attack is any violent attack, usually entailing the attacker detonating an explosive, where the attacker has accepted their own death as a direct result of the attacking method used. Suicide attacks have occurred throughout histor ...
blew himself up outside
Dizengoff Center
Dizengoff Center ( he, דיזנגוף סנטר) is a shopping mall at the intersection of Dizengoff Street and King George Street in Tel Aviv, Israel. The mall is named for Meir Dizengoff, the first mayor of Tel Aviv.
History
Dizengoff Center, ...
in downtown
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the ...
, killing 13 Israelis
and wounding 130 more. The attack was the fourth suicide bombing in Israel in nine days, bringing the death toll during that span to over 60.
The attack
The suicide bomber detonated just before 4 pm (
GMT
Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, counted from midnight. At different times in the past, it has been calculated in different ways, including being calculated from noon; as a cons ...
+2) outside the Dizengoff Center, the largest shopping mall in Tel Aviv. That day the center was particularly crowded for the eve of Purim. Many in the crowd were children dressed in costume for the holiday. The bomber sought to enter the mall but turned back because of the police presence. Instead, he went into the busy intersection where a large number of pedestrians were crossing the street and set off his 20-kilogram nail bomb.
Following the attack, a phone call to an Israeli radio station apparently from a Hamas representative identified the attacker as Abdel-Rahim Ishaq, a 24-year-old resident of
Ramallah.
References
External links
The Bat-Chen DiariesPatches, a memorial film*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dizengoff Center Suicide Bombing
Suicide bombings in 1996
Israeli casualties in the Second Intifada
Islamic terrorism in Israel
Terrorist incidents in Tel Aviv
Mass murder in 1996
Massacres in Israel
March 1996 crimes
March 1996 events in Asia
1990s in Tel Aviv
Islamic terrorist incidents in 1996
Hamas suicide bombings
Building bombings in Israel
1996 murders in Israel
Terrorist incidents in Israel in 1996
Shopping mall bombings