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Jerusalem bombing victim dies after 22 years in coma

Chana Nachenberg was injured in the Sbarro bombing in downtown Jerusalem in 2001

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VIEW OF THE SBARRO RESTAURANT IN THE CORNER OF JAFFA AND KING GEORGE IN JERUSALEM, AFTER IT WAS BLOWN UP BY A PALESTINIAN SUICIDE BOMBER. ôéâåò úåôú áéøåùìéí. áöéìåí, îáè òéìé ùì îñòãú "ñáàøå" áöåîú äøçåáåú éôå åäîìê â'åøâ' áîøëæ äòéø éøåùìéí, ùôåööä òì éãé îçáì ôìùúéðé îúàáã.

A woman has died after spending 22 years in a coma after a suicide bomb attack in Jerusalem.

Chana Nachenberg, 52, was injured in the Sbarro bombing in downtown Jerusalem in 2001 and spent the last two decades unconscious in a Tel Aviv hospital.

New York-born Nachenberg had been in a vegetative state for 22 years since the attack, which took the lives of 15 civilians, including seven children, and wounded some 130 others. Nachenberg’s passing brings the death toll to 16.

The Sbarro pizzeria was located at one of the busiest intersections in downtown Jerusalem, on the corner of King George and Jaffa streets. On Aug. 9, 2001, the day of the bombing, Nachenberg was there with relatives from Riverdale, New York, and her two-year-old daughter, who was also injured in the blast.

In 2021, her daughter, Sarah Shalev, told JNS that during her teenage years it was so difficult for her to see her mother that she didn’t go to the hospital to visit. Sarah often had to leave her friends’ bat mitzvah celebrations, and later, their weddings, overwhelmed by the fact that her mother would never celebrate those events with her. Even fireworks and bonfires were at times a source of trauma.

The terrorists responsible for the attack continue to be rewarded by the Palestinian Authority, which allots $7,321 monthly to them and their families, according to a 2019 report by Palestinian Media Watch.

Bombmaker Abdullah Barghouti had collected $213,848 as of the report’s publication. The family of the suicide bomber, Izz al-Din al-Masri, also received payments.

Ahlam Tamimi, handsomely rewarded for planning the attack, was released from prison as part of a 2011 prisoner exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. She then fled to Jordan.

Tamimi is on America’s “Most Wanted Terrorist” list as two of the victims were U.S. citizens: Malka Roth, 15, and Shoshana Yehudit Greenbaum, 31. However, the United States has been unable to secure her extradition as a 1995 extradition agreement was not ratified by Jordan’s government.

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