2008 Dimona Suicide Bombing

By 2008, suicide bombings inside Israel had declined sharply from the peak of the Second Intifada, when 55 such attacks occurred in 2002 alone.[7] The decline followed a combination of active counterterrorism operations, construction of the security barrier, measures taken by Palestinian security services against Hamas networks, and operational weaknesses within terrorist organizations.[7] The Dimona attack demonstrated, however, that the threat had not been eliminated.

The broader security context in early 2008 included a breach of the Gaza-Egypt border fence. Early reporting linked the breach to assessments that the attackers had traveled from Gaza through Sinai, describing the route as a practically free passage into Israel.[2] The breach complicated efforts to determine how potential attackers had entered the country, although investigators had not established that the Dimona attackers used that route.[8]

At approximately 10:30 a.m. on February 4, 2008, two attackers arrived at a commercial center in Dimona carrying explosive devices.[3][2] The first detonated his device, killing Lyubov Razdolskaya, a 73-year-old resident of the city, and wounding multiple bystanders; her husband was among those injured.[1][2] The wounded were transported to Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba.[2]

The second attacker was wounded in the explosion from the first blast.[3] He had apparently been intended to detonate his own device several minutes after the first, possibly when emergency responders reached the scene.[2] A police officer who arrived quickly shot and killed the second attacker before he could activate his device.[9][4] Police then neutralized the unexploded belt.[9]

Israeli authorities subsequently worked to determine the route by which the attackers had entered Israel. Early assessments suggested both men had left the Gaza Strip and entered Israel through the Sinai Peninsula, exploiting the breached border fence.[2] A later investigation had not ruled out entry from the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — and the route remained uncertain.[8]

Responsibility for the attack was claimed by multiple organizations in the hours following the bombing, and attribution remained genuinely contested in the immediate aftermath. Hamas's Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, via an anonymous source in Gaza, claimed the attack was carried out by a cell from Hebron, naming the two alleged bombers as Muhammad Salim al-Harbawi and Shadi Muhammad al-Zaghir.[3] Hamas praised the attack publicly as a "heroic act."[1]

Separate claims were made within roughly an hour of the bombing by Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine's Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, and a group described by Ynet as the United Resistance Committees' "Resistance Companies."[10] A Meir Amit Center report said the competing claims named alleged attackers identified as Gaza residents and included purported recordings of the bombers' wills. It assessed that the claims may have come from a separate cell that had departed Gaza after the border fence was breached and lost contact with its handlers.[9]

Later Israeli and analytical assessments attributed the attack to Hamas operatives based in the Hebron area.[11][7] The U.S. State Department's 2008 terrorism report recorded the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine as having jointly claimed responsibility. The Congressional Research Service also noted a claim by Hamas's military wing, which named perpetrators from the West Bank in an attempt to rebut Israeli suggestions that the bombers had crossed from Gaza.[4][5]

Some Hamas officials denied involvement or attributed the attack to Fatah, while a Fatah spokesman denied Fatah's connection.[9] Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas condemned the bombing, coupling that condemnation with criticism of an Israeli military operation in Qabatiya that same morning; his office stated that the Authority opposed actions that harmed innocent civilians, whether Palestinian or Israeli.[10]

Israeli security assessments identified a Hamas network based in Hebron as responsible for organizing the attack.[7] Sa'id Qawasmeh was later identified as having directed the squad; his brother Muataz, described as a Hamas operative, aided and abetted him.[12] Sa'id was subsequently released as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange and expelled to Gaza.[12] A 2012 Shin Bet announcement reported that Meid Qawasma had been involved in transporting the terrorists and had also been expelled to Gaza in the framework of the Shalit deal.[13]

The IDF identified Shihab Na'atsha, a 25-year-old Hamas explosives engineer, as the individual who assembled the bomb belt used in the attack.[14] In July 2008, Israeli forces surrounded Na'atsha in a house in Hebron; after he refused to surrender and hours of gunfire, the IDF bulldozed the house. Na'atsha was killed, and two other suspects were apprehended.[14] Hamas stated that he had fought Israeli forces for twelve hours.[14]

Following the attack, the Israeli military raided and closed the Islamic Charitable Society in Hebron, which the Washington Institute for Near East Policy described as a major conduit of Hamas funds and a key element of the movement's infrastructure in the southern West Bank.[11]

Israel responded to the bombing with air strikes that killed nine Hamas militants, according to the Congressional Research Service.[5] In Gaza, residents were reported to have distributed sweets and flowers in the streets after news of the attack spread, with drivers honking in celebration; the distribution reportedly ended after news arrived of an attempted assassination of a commander in the Salah al-Din Brigades' rocket unit.[10]

Senior Hamas official Osama al-Muzeina declared that the Dimona attack demonstrated that the apparent decline in suicide bombings had been an illusion, and said "all possibilities are open" regarding future attacks.[15] Another Hamas official, Yahya Musa, similarly said more attacks would follow.[15]

In diplomatic discussions that took place on the day of the attack, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni challenged Palestinian negotiators Saeb Erekat and Abu Ala over the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades' claim of responsibility and pressed Fatah to act. Erekat responded that the Brigades were fragmented and that various groups used their name, and noted that Fatah had pledged to transfer weapons to Palestinian security forces and refrain from military action.[16]

The Dimona bombing holds a grim place in Israeli history as what the Jewish Virtual Library identifies as the last suicide bombing carried out inside Israel.[6] It occurred at a moment when such attacks had declined dramatically — from 55 in 2002 to a single incident in 2008 — underscoring both the effect of Israeli counterterrorism measures and the persistence of the underlying threat.[7]

The attack showed that suicide bombings had not ended, even as the overall trend pointed toward a sharp reduction.[7] The police officer's swift action prevented a second detonation that preliminary reporting suggested may have been intended to strike security forces and rescue workers arriving at the scene.[4][2] Official and analytical accounts consistently identify the officer's intervention as the event that stopped the second attacker from activating his device.[4][1]

Sources vary on the number of people wounded. The U.S. State Department's 2008 report and one Jewish Virtual Library page each give nine injured, while the Congressional Research Service reports 23.[4][5] Israeli news reports give figures ranging from eight to 38 wounded, and a 2012 Meir Amit Center report also states that 38 people were wounded.[17][8][12] The sources agree that one person — Lyubov Razdolskaya — was killed.[1][6] None of the cited sources reconciles the differing injury totals.

Attribution also remained unsettled in early reporting. The competing claims by multiple Palestinian factions, combined with differing accounts of the attackers' identities and origins, created a confused picture in the immediate aftermath. Later Israeli assessments pointed consistently to a Hamas network in Hebron, and subsequent security actions — including the killing of Na'atsha and the identification of network members — were consistent with that attribution.[11][7][14] The State Department's 2008 report contains an internal inconsistency, dating the attack to February 4 in one passage and to March in a separate passage, without reconciliation.[4]