When Will It End?

More of this Feature • Part 1: Palestinian Suicide Bomb Attack in a Jerusalem Pizzeria • Part 2: The End of the Arab-Israeli Conflict   Discussion Forum • First Person Account of the Bomb Attack from a Survivor   Related Resources • Victims of Palestinian Violence and Terror in Israel since September 2000    From Other Guides • About Israel Culture  Elsewhere on the Web • IsraelInsider

Six days a week we would drop our daughters off in the morning and pick them up in the afternoon from the cheery daycare center. Given that Chana lived just down the street from me and did not have a car, I often would give her a ride back and forth from daycare. She was a loving mother, and she would talk often about her daughter Sarah.

Last Friday Chana told me how excited she was that Sarah would be turning three and starting preschool in the fall. Now, due to a Palestinian suicide bomber, I am praying Chana will survive so she can take Sarah to preschool in September and celebrate Sarah's third birthday with her in October.

Today Chana lies in the hospital in critical condition, as a nail from the suicide bomber's ten kilo bomb penetrated her back and entered her heart. Sarah, fortunately, escaped with light injuries as she was standing behind a column when the bomb exploded. 15 others were killed and over 130 injured by the same bomb on August 9, 2001 in the Jerusalem pizzeria.

156 Israelis have lost their lives in the last ten months since the violence erupted in Israel. Over a thousand have been injured - lost limbs, damaged organs, scarred faces, emotional trauma. Thousands of lives have been turned upside down due to the loss or injury of parents, children, spouses, relatives, and loved ones.

The ugliness - the sniper fire, drive-by shootings, lynching and stoning, car bombs, bus bombs, and suicide bombers - surrounds us now. Reservists lynched by a Palestinian mob in Ramallah. Twelve year old boys beaten and stoned to death in Tekoa. A girl baby shot in the head while on the playground. Fathers, mothers and children murdered while traveling in their cars. Teenage boys waiting for their school bus in Kfar Saba, teenage girls waiting to enter a disco in Tel Aviv, visitors to the Netanya shopping mall, families eating pizza at lunchtime in Jerusalem - killed and maimed by suicide bombers.

The question is when will it end?

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