2003 CAFE HILLEL BOMBING TERRORISTS CAUGHT

4 J'lm Arabs nabbed for Cafe bombing By ETGAR LEFKOVITS
Four Arab residents of Jerusalem are under arrest for allegedly being part of an east Jerusalem-based Hamas cell that helped carry out the suicide bombing at Jerusalem's Cafe Hillel last year, police and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) announced Sunday. The arrest of the four brings to 51 the number of east Jerusalem residents apprehended for alleged terrorism ties since the beginning of the year, security officials said after news of the latest arrests was released Sunday afternoon.

The suspects – alleged cell leader Ahmed Abid, 38, and his student Na'al Abid, 26, of Issawiya, A'a Aziz Amraz, 44, of Shuafat, and Faziz Mahu, 43, from Anata – were apprehended by Jerusalem police in October, following the earlier discovery of the West Bank Hamas cell that security officials say masterminded the September 9, 2003, bombing at the popular Jerusalem cafe.

Seven people were killed in the Cafe Hillel bombing, including Cleveland-born Dr. David Applebaum, who headed the emergency room at Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Hospital, and his 20-year-old daughter Nava, who was due to marry the next day.

During their Shin Bet interrogation, two of the suspects confessed that they assisted the Palestinian suicide bomber who blew up the cafe in the city's trendy German Colony, provided him with the suicide belt used in the bombing and drove him to the site of the attack, security officials said in a two-page press release detailing the arrests.

After dropping off the bomber near the busy Jerusalem cafe, the two accomplices fled by car, and heard of news of the bombing as they returned to their northern Jerusalem village, located adjacent to the city's French Hill and Mount Scopus neighborhoods. Following the bombing, even as they lost contact with their Hamas handlers in the West Bank due to repeat IDF raids, the four Jerusalem cell members continued to look for other sites in the city for additional future attacks until their arrest two months ago, the press release said.