Suicide Attacks Leave Jittery Public and Businesses on Guard

The day after a suicide bomber killed himself and 15 others last week in a Jerusalem pizzeria, Koby Sharf looked at his nearby Hillel Cafe--deserted by unnerved customers fearful of another attack--and took action. He hired a private security guard to stand at the front door.

Having the burly, uniformed guard scrutinizing clients and their bags is not pleasant, Sharf said Tuesday. But he feels that he has no choice.

“I have a regular clientele, and I saw that they were distressed,” Sharf said. “I’ve built this business over 20 years and I don’t want to lose it. I want them to feel safe.”

A few doors down, the Aroma coffee shop also has posted a guard outside.

What might have seemed like paranoia before fighting broke out between Israel and the Palestinians 10 months ago now feels like a necessity. With bombers often trying to strike at the heart of Israel, businesspeople are looking for ways to keep spooked clients from abandoning their establishments altogether in favor of the relative safety of home.

“Even with the guard, we have less people than before,” said Aroma shift manager Pamell Cuba, 20. “But I think the guard sitting at the table outside gives them more of a sense of security.”

Inside Aroma, Liad Frank, 20, sipped an iced coffee and munched a cheese boureka as he read the papers. He is of two minds about the coffee shop’s guard.

“I guess there is some comfort in it,” he said. “But there is also a sense of threat in seeing him here, in knowing that you need him. It reminds you of what the situation is when you would really like to forget about it.”

A Deterrent to Would-Be Bombers

Across Israel, as a suicide bombing campaign by Islamic militants intensifies, guards are appearing outside restaurants, cafes and other spots where they haven’t been seen before. Even people throwing private parties are hiring guards to stand outside their homes to give guests a sense of security.

Three days after Thursday’s attack on the Sbarro pizza restaurant in downtown Jerusalem, another suicide bomber blew himself up at the Wall Street Cafe in Kiryat Motzkin, a working-class town on Israel’s northern coast. At least 20 people were injured.

On Tuesday, Palestinians reported that, in separate incidents, two men apparently blew themselves up as they prepared bombs in the West Bank. A senior Israeli military officer told foreign reporters in a briefing that the army believes that “hundreds” more militants are prepared to die in suicide attacks.

After every Israeli killing of a militant suspected of planning or helping execute such an operation, more would-be bombers come forward to pledge their willingness to die for the Palestinian cause, offering press interviews and leaflets or leaving videotapes behind as their last testimony before they attempt an attack.

Faced with the gloomy prospect of more attacks in the near future, Israelis have devised coping strategies. Which restaurants to patronize and whether malls, museums or grocery stores are safe are topics of daily conversation. Since the latest attacks, people have begun to talk about what to do in case they are confronted by a bomber who manages to slip past the government security forces, as so many have of late.

Sharf, for instance, is not willing to leave the safety of himself and his clients in the hands of the newly hired guard. “This is the destiny of the Jews we’re talking about here,” he said. “If, God forbid, there will be no Jews left in this country, then who will I sell coffee to, myself?”

As an extra precaution, he has permanently parked two cars on the street in front of Hillel Cafe to block bombers who might try to drive explosives-laden vehicles into the eatery.

And he has thought about what he will do if, despite his efforts, a bomber gets past the guard. Wall Street Cafe owner Aron Rozeman did the wrong thing, Sharf believes, when he threw a chair at the bomber.

The attacker entered the cafe and lifted his shirt, showing a waitress the explosives strapped to his body. Rozeman, who was injured in the blast that followed, said he could think of nothing else to do, so he threw the first thing at hand.

“That was stupid,” said Sharf, 46, who was born in Jerusalem. “I would grab his hands and hold them until the police got there so he couldn’t detonate the bomb.”

In an attempted bombing in the Jordan Valley last month, a quick-thinking bus driver pushed a suspicious-looking young man off a bus and held him on the ground until soldiers arrived. The would-be attacker was carrying a large bomb. The driver, hailed as a hero by the army and the government, told reporters afterward that his only thought was that even if he was killed, at least his passengers would be saved.

‘Terrorists Don’t Mess With Guards’

Sharf and others hope that the mere presence of guards outside their businesses will serve as a deterrent to bombers who want to get into crowded public places to maximize the impact of their attacks.

“Terrorists don’t mess with guards,” said Avi Bareket, director-general of the Moked Amun security company in Tel Aviv. “If they see a guard at the door, they’ll just go somewhere else where there is no guard. That’s why there are no bombings these days at malls--because of the security. The terrorists are targeting coffee shops and restaurants instead.”

Bareket said business is so good these days that he’s hard pressed to meet demand. Many businesses want men just out of the army, particularly if they have served in combat units. There is a difference, however, in what the law will allow a private security guard to do when confronted with a suspected bomber, Bareket said.

Different Training for Soldiers vs. Guards

Soldiers are trained to shoot the suspect in the head in the hopes of killing him before he can detonate a bomb. Private guards, however, are supposed to yell, “ ‘Stop, or I’ll shoot!’ then to fire a shot in the air, then to fire toward the suspect’s legs,” Bareket said.

“Our job is to stop the potential terrorist from entering the coffee shop, our job is not to apprehend the terrorist, it is to provide security to our employer,” he said. His guards are trained to “look for suspicious people based on their appearance,” Bareket said.

“For example, they watch if they look nervous, if they are wearing a heavy coat in the summer, if they have an Arab complexion--I know that it isn’t nice to say, but what can I do? This is the situation we are in.”