Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reported on Sunday, citing knowledgeable sources, that the Jordanian authorities informed Hamas of the need to deport Ahlam Tamimi from Jordan immediately. The sources confirmed that Amman officially informed the terrorist group in Doha of its decision that they would find a place for Tamimi, or Jordan would hand her over to the United States.
Tamimi was involved in planning and carrying out the Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing on August 9, 2001, which resulted in 145 casualties, including 16 deaths, half of whom were children. At the time, she was 20 years old and still a university student. After driving the suicide bomber to the location of the attack, she later reported on the bombing for a PA Arab news channel.
Tamimi was sentenced to 16 consecutive life sentences and an additional 15 years in prison for her involvement in the bombing but was released (alongside Yahya Sinwar and a thousand others) in the October 2011 prisoner swap for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
According to Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, the family of prisoner Ahlam Tamimi has been urging Hamas to include their daughter’s case—who holds both Jordanian and Palestinian citizenships—in the negotiations with Israel. This is particularly relevant given that Hamas is holding detainees with American citizenship.
In recent years, the US government has offered a reward of up to five million dollars for information leading to Ahlam al-Tamimi’s capture. With the change in US leadership, new developments have taken place. Jordan’s King Abdullah is scheduled to visit the White House next Tuesday, following a phone conversation he had with US President Donald Trump. During Trump’s previous term, he called for Tamimi’s extradition to face justice.
In March 2017, the Court of Cassation, Jordan’s highest judicial authority, upheld the Amman Court of Appeal’s decision to refuse the extradition of Ahlam Tamimi to the United States.
During its first term in office, in 2020, President Trump considered halting aid to Jordan in an attempt to pressure it into handing Tamimi over.
Tamimi’s page on the FBI website accuses her of “Conspiring to Use and Using a Weapon of Mass Destruction Against a United States National Outside the United States Resulting in Death and Aiding and Abetting and Causing an Act to be Done.”
The FBI website adds, under “Caution,” that “Ahlam Ahmad Al-Tamimi has been charged with participating in an August 9, 2001, suicide bomb attack at a pizza restaurant in Jerusalem that killed 16 people, including three United States nationals. Three other United States nationals were among approximately 122 others injured in the attack. An affidavit in support of Al-Tamimi’s criminal complaint and a warrant for her arrest were sworn out under seal on July 15, 2013, in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in Washington, D.C., and were made public on March 14, 2017.”
According to Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, Jordan has refused to accept any of the released prisoners who were deported and hold Jordanian citizenship as part of the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel. This included two prisoners with Jordanian citizenship who were released by Israel as part of the first phase of the agreement.
