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Palestinian students at al-Najah National University, in the West Bank city of Nablus, on Sunday inaugurated a controversial exhibition that includes a depiction of last month’s suicide bombing of the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem that killed 15 civilians.
The exhibition, which was staged by students supportive of Hamas, the militant Islamic movement that claimed credit for the attack, commemorates the first anniversary of the most recent intifada, the Palestinian revolt against Israeli rule.
Thousands of students have visited the exhibition, which is set up in the university’s cafeteria and scheduled to run for a week.
Al-Najah, which was founded in 1918, has been the site of numerous clashes over the past year. Sixty of the university’s 9,000 students reportedly remain in Israeli “administrative detention.” The institution has become popular among supporters of militant Islam, and a number of suicide bombers have come from its student body.
As part of the exhibition, a Palestinian donning military fatigues and a black mask set off a mock explosion, mimicking the suicide bombing in the pizzeria on August 9, one of the deadliest terrorist acts in Israel since the resumption of the intifada.
“Our message from this exhibition to our people is that the occupiers will suffer as long as we are under occupation,” Ala Hamedan, one of the organizers, reportedly said. “To the Israeli people: If you leave the occupied territories, you will not suffer and you will not see blood anymore.”
The exhibition also includes mannequins dressed like suicide bombers, replete with a Koran in one hand and an automatic weapon in the other -- reminiscent of poses that suicide bombers frequently assume in video recordings they leave behind as inspirational symbols of their acts.
Other themes in the exhibition include open graves with white coffins -- tributes to Hamas leaders slain by Israeli squads over the last year of the conflict. Near a mannequin dressed like an ultra-Orthodox Jew, a broadcast recording says, “O believer, there is a Jewish man behind me. Come and kill him.”
Twenty-one Palestinians have blown themselves up in suicide bombings since the intifada began. More than 50 people have been killed by these acts and hundreds wounded. The radical Islamic movements Hamas and Islamic Jihad have carried out the majority of the attacks.
“This exhibition shows the reality we live in. Suicide bombings here, killings there,” said Ghadir Haddad, a 19-year-old economics student. “I’m very happy because as they kill and torture us, they are also killed and tortured.”
Israeli officials could not be reached to comment on the exhibit.
