Karen Shatsky, 15, Nehemia Amar 15, and Rachel Gila Thaler, 16:
Murder in the pizzeria
On Saturday night, February 16, 2002, the Karnei Shomron shopping
mall was filled with local teenagers – just as it is every Saturday night.
They come to be with their friends and eat at one of the mall’s restaurants.
Several of these teenagers were at the pizzeria, when just after
7:30 in the evening, a suicide bomber walked inside. A few minutes
later, he blew himself up.
Karen Shatsky and Nehemia Amar were killed immediately. Rachel
Thaler died 11 days later.
Rachel was hospitalized in critical condition, pieces of shrapnel lodged
in her brain, at the Schneider Children’s Hospital in Petah Tikva. Her
brother Leor, 14, was also wounded in the attack and listed in serious
condition.Their mother Janet rushed – sobbing and terrified – from one
hospital to another to care for her two severely wounded children. It
was not possible to move Liran to the hospital in Petah Tikva because
his condition was so serious.
Four of the wounded girls were in the same 9th grade class in Ulpanat
Lehava in Kedumim.They had been spending the Sabbath together
and at the end of the day found themselves lying next to each other
in the hospital’s intensive care unit.
Moriah, one of the girls, wrote a note from her hospital bed to her
friend Shira: “To Shira – I think about you all the time. Please forgive
me if you think this happened because of me. With much love,
Moriah.”
Moriah blamed herself because she had suggested they all go eat pizza.
When she heard that her friend Karen Shatsky, who she sat next to
in class, had been killed, she sobbed and asked to be taken to her
funeral – even if she had to be wheeled there in her hospital bed.
Karen Shatsky, 14, was born in Israel to parents who moved to
Israel from the United States. She was the family’s youngest, having
three older sisters and two older brothers. Karen was a student at
Ulpanat Lehava in Kedumim. All her friends described her as very
sociable and clever, a girl radiating a unique inner beauty.
Nachemya Amar, 15, was a student at the Bnei Hayil Yeshiva High
School in Kedumim. He was a diligent student and his friends
admired him and loved his sense of humor. “He was a good-natured,
modest and innocent boy with a wonderful sense of humor,” said his
father. “Now we don’t know who will make us laugh...”
Rachel Thaler, 16, died in the hospital 11 days after the attack. Rachel
had celebrated her 16th birthday a month earlier and her friends filled
her room with 500 balloons. “She was the loveliest, most generous
and happiest girl in the world and the terrorist cut short her happy
life”, her friends said.
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