Café Hillel bombing

On the evening of 9 September 2003, a Palestinian suicide bomber approached Café Hillel, a coffee shop on Emek Refaim Street in the German Colony neighborhood of Jerusalem. At around 11:20 pm, a security guard stationed nearby noticed the bomber carrying a bulky square-shaped object under his shirt and ordered him to stop. The bomber refused, and the guard held fire out of concern that shooting him could trigger detonation. Moments later, the bomber detonated his explosives near the cafe's entrance. Security guard Alon Mizrahi attempted to stop him from entering the cafe when the explosion occurred. Seven people were killed and more than 50 were injured. The attack occurred a few hours after a separate suicide bombing at a bus stop near the Tzrifin military base.

Among those killed were Dr. David Applebaum, an emergency room physician known for his work on treating suicide-bombing victims, and his 20-year-old daughter, Nava Applebaum. The two had gone to the cafe together for a father-daughter conversation on the eve of Nava's wedding, which had been scheduled for the following day, 10 September 2003, at a kibbutz south of Jerusalem. Earlier that day, Nava had attended the mikveh as required before her wedding and had been helping with wedding preparations. Nava was pronounced dead by the time paramedics reached her.

David Applebaum was born in Detroit, Michigan, raised partly in Chicago, and had trained as a rabbi before pursuing medicine. He moved to Israel in 1982 and became chief of the emergency department and trauma services at Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Medical Center. Nava, born in Cleveland, Ohio, had moved to Israel with her family, graduated from Horev Girls High School, and completed national service working with children with cancer. She had planned to study chemistry or genetics with the goal of cancer research. Her fiancé, Chanan Sand, collapsed upon learning of her death. She was buried the day she had been scheduled to marry, next to her father, at Har HaMenuchot cemetery in Jerusalem.

The attacker was identified as Ramez Fahmi Izz al-Din Abu Salim, a 22-year-old Hamas member from the village of Rantis who had previously been held in administrative detention and released seven months before the attack.

In connection with the bombing, Nael Obeid, a Palestinian man, was convicted in 2004 and sentenced to seven life sentences plus 30 years for his role in the attack. He was released in February 2025 as part of a prisoner exchange during the Gaza war and died in a fall a few days later, with the cause not immediately clear. Separately, Maher Udda, described as a Hamas militant leader accused of participating in both the Café Hillel and Tzrifin attacks, was captured by Israeli military forces on 14 March 2010. Ibrahim Dar Musa, accused of involvement in planning the attack, was released from prison in October 2011 as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange.