Haim Smadar

Haim Smadar was one of two victims of a female Palestinian suicide bomber, Ayat Akhras, who blew herself up in a supermarket in the Kiryat Ha-Yovel neighborhood of Jerusalem on March 29, 2002.

Smadar, a native of Tunis who had immigrated to Israel as a child was a father of 6 children, two of whom are deaf. His regular job was as a guard at a school for autistic children. He only took the temporary security job at the market to make some extra money for the upcoming Passover holiday while school was closed. On that Friday afternoon, around 1:50 PM, Akhras a 16-year-old female Palestinian suicide bomber, wearing a belt of explosives around her waist, walked into the supermarket and detonated her explosives. Smadar, who had suspected the teen to be a bomber, prevented her from going past the entrance of the market. His last words, as he tried to stop Akras from entering the supermarket, were, “You will not enter [the market]. You and I will blow up here.”

Jerusalem police estimated that by preventing Akhras entry deeper into the market, Smadar may have saved scores of lives. Smadar himself was killed, together with an American born teenager, 17-year old Rachel Levy. A total of 28 people were injured.

"It is so characteristic of him that he was the one to block the terrorist from entering the supermarket," said one of the parents of a child from the school at which he worked. His widow remembered him saying: "Shoshana, if a suicide bomber ever comes close to my school, he will not get past me. With my own body I would stop him,".

Haim Smadar was buried in Jerusalem. He is survived by his wife Shoshana and their five children, as well as Alon, his son by his first marriage.