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Dolphinarium massacre
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The Dolphinarium discotheque suicide bombing was a terrorist attack on June 1, 2001 in which a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up outside a discotheque on a beachfront in Tel Aviv, Israel, killing 21 teenagers and injuring 132.
ide bomber Saeed Hotari exploded himself at the entrance to the disco about 23:30 PM on a Saturday night, when the area was packed with youngsters waiting for admission.
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Encyclopedia
The Dolphinarium discotheque suicide bombing was a terrorist attack on June 1, 2001 in which a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up outside a discotheque on a beachfront in Tel Aviv, Israel, killing 21 teenagers and injuring 132.
The attack
Suicide bomber Saeed Hotari exploded himself at the entrance to the disco about 23:30 PM on a Saturday night, when the area was packed with youngsters waiting for admission. It was the second attack in five months on the same target. Both Islamic Jihad and a group calling itself Hizbullah-Palestine originally claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing, only to later retract the claims.Israeli officials called the attack a "massacre", and many Israelis called for a massive retaliation. The government did not, however, take any immediate retaliatory action. US and other governments applied heavy diplomatic pressure on Israel to refrain from action. Yasser Arafat, then head of the Palestinian authority, condemned the attack and called for a cease-fire; however, the Second Intifada continued unabated for another four years. The attack was one of the reasons cited by the Israeli government for building the Israeli West Bank barrier.
Eyewitness accounts
- Tomer Revah (age 22): "We came to the "Pacha" with a friend to hang out. Fortunately, we arrived late and when we reached the club's doors we heard a blast and saw body parts. After the blast, we approached the place in order to assist".
- Ariel Levi: "I was on my way to a friend on a motorcycle when I heard the blast. I went off the motorcycle immediately and ran to the place. The rescue forces that came to the place were miserable because there was no one to save. Bodies were laid one above another on the sidewalk. I found on the floor a 16 or 17 year-old child the age of my daughter. I found her by accident. Her pupils were dilating and she was covered in blood. I felt a pulse but she wasn't breathing. I immediately tried to resuscitate her from what I learnt in a resuscitation course. I yelled to the medics to come because they gave up because of the sheer number of bodies. I succeeded and an ambulance evacuated her to the hospital while she's breathing with a pulse. I hope she will be all right, I need to visit her and hope she recovers".
- Roni Soklicki, responsible for parties in the "Pacha" club, the club adjacent to the bombing site: "Around 23:30, the time when the clubs open for parties, I went out to check last time before the party started. There were dozens of people there waiting for the Russian orientated party. Suddenly I heard a huge blast and I saw a blaze of fire erupting to the sky. It was a heinous picture, people lied on the floor and body parts were thrown everywhere".
Victims
21 Israeli civilians, mostly teenagers whose families immigrated from the former Soviet Union, died in the attack:
- Maria Tagiltseva, 14
- Yevgeniya Dorfman, 15
- Raisa Nemirovskaya, 15
- Yulia Sklyanik, 15
- Ana Kazachkova, 15
- Katherine Kastinyada, 15
- Irina Nepomnyashaya, 16
- Mariana Medvedenko, 16
- Yulia Nalimova, 16
- Liana Saakyan, 16
- Marina Berkovskaya, 17
- Simona Rudina, 17
- Alexei Lupalo, 17
- Yelena Nalimova, 18
- Irina Osadchaya, 18
- Ilya Gutman, 19
- Sergei Panchenko, 20
- Roman Dzhanashvili, 21
- Diaz Nurmanov, 21
- Jan Bloom, 25
- Uri Shachar, 32
Palestinian reaction
- In Ramallah dozens of Palestinians celebrated in the streets and fired in the air as a sign of happiness.
- The bomber, Saeed Hotari was praised as a martyr by his father.
- According to the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, an Israeli-based organization with close ties to the IDF, among the materials seized by the IDF in the course of Operation Defensive Shield were two documents issued by the Martyrs’ Families and Injured Care Establishment, which falls under the authority of the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Social Affairs. The documents address the transfer of a grant in the sum of $2,000 to the father of the suicide bomber, who was living in Jordan at that time (June 18, 2001). According to the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, the transfer was made in spite of the suicide bomber’s Hamas affiliation, in spite of the father’s public support of the suicide bombing attack, and in spite of Yasser Arafat’s public condemnation of the suicide bombing attack.
See also
External links
- Memorial website
- Memorial website
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