Chana Tova Chaya Nachenberg, H’yd, passed away at the age of 52 on Wednesday, 22 years after she was critically injured in the Sbarro bombing attack in Jerusalem in 2001.

Chana, H’yd, born in New York, was a young mother at the time of the attack. One of the many nails placed in the bomb pierced her heart and she has been in a coma ever since. Her death brings the number of fatalities from the attack to 16, including seven children, a woman pregnant with her first child, and five members of one family – the Schijveschuurder family. Over 100 people were wounded in the attack.

Her father, Yitzchak Feiner, told Israeli media that his daughter, Chana, H’yd, who was 31 when she was injured, was sitting in the pizza shop with her only child, a two-year-old daughter, who was miraculously uninjured in the attack.

“Her daughter, our granddaughter is 24 now,” he said. “My daughter would have been 53 in another month. Since the attack, 21 years and nine months have passed, during which my daughter has been unconscious in the Reut [rehabilitation] Hospital in Tel Aviv. Three weeks ago, she was hospitalized at Ichilov Hospital and that’s where she passed away.”

The levaya took place at 4 p.m. at the beis kevaros in Modi’in.

A decade after the attack, in October 2011, three out of the four terrorists who carried out the attack were released as part of the first phase of the deal for the return of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit.

One of the released terrorists was Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi, who had been sentenced to 16 life terms in Israel for aiding the bomber and choosing the location of the attack. She was extradited to her native Jordan, where she received a heroine’s welcome at the Amman airport upon her arrival and regularly brags about the attack on TV and in public speeches, expressing joy over the large number of Jews who were killed and wounded.

The family of another US citizen who was killed in the attack, Malki Roth, H’yd, who was 15 at the time, have been waging a campaign for the extradition of Tamimi since she was released.

The Biden administration claims it is still seeking Tamimi’s extradition, which was blocked by Jordan despite the fact that the two countries signed an extradition deal in 1995. Tamimi is on the FBI’s list of Most Wanted Terrorists and the US placed a $5 million bounty on her head, while meanwhile, Jordan has received billions of dollars in US aid in the years since the attack.

The Palestinian Authority, which is now generously funded by the US under the Biden administration, has paid over a million dollars to the Sbarro terrorists.

Below is a video of Tamimi (translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute) speaking on Jordanian TV, saying that “I joined the annal of history by committing the best act, a ‘crown on my head,’ which killed 15 Zionists and wounded 122, thanks to Allah.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)