Arnold Roth was halfway up a ladder on the patio of his Jerusalem home, putting up the family’s succah, when the news came over the radio.
It was October 2011 and Israel had agreed to the prisoner exchange that would free the captured soldier Gilad Shalit after more than five years in Hamas captivity. As Roth listened, one name mattered above all the others: Ahlam al-Tamimi.
A decade earlier, Tamimi had planned the suicide bombing at Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem that killed Roth’s 15-year-old daughter, Malki, along with 15 other people.
More than 100 people were injured in one of the deadliest attacks of the Second Intifada.
After boasting of her role in the attack during her trial, a panel of three Israeli judges sentenced Tamimi to 16 life terms for orchestrating the bombing.
Whenever negotiations over Shalit surfaced, there was speculation that Tamimi would be among those to be swapped. Now, eight years into her sentence, it was confirmed.
The deal saw Israel free 1,027 prisoners. As well as Tamimi, Israel released Yahya Sinwar, who would later mastermind the October 7 massacre.
Standing on the ladder, Roth heard Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu say his “heart goes out” to the victims’ families and that each would receive a personal letter. That letter never arrived.
Nearly 15 years later, speaking to the JC at Israel’s National Library in Jerusalem, Roth says: “We didn’t know then that the deal would lead to October 7 – it certainly did – but the main terrorist released in the Shalit deal was not Sinwar, it was Tamimi, she was the top of the list.”
Malki surrounded by friends (Photo: Arnold Roth)[Missing Credit]
In the years since, Netanyahu has never spoken to Roth, despite the two attending the same synagogue for various services.
“He was in our shul, a few steps away from me, every Erev Pesach and Erev Rosh Hashanah for years. Not then, and not today, has he done anything to engage.”
For Roth, the Shalit deal marked the moment justice slipped away. His daughter’s killer was walking free – and received a hero’s welcome in Jordan. But six years later, events in Washington offered a renewed sense of possibility.
In 2017, the US Department of Justice unsealed criminal charges against Tamimi for her role in the bombing. Under US law, those accused of murdering American citizens overseas can be extradited to stand trial in the United States.
Tamimi’s attack killed three Americans, two in the bombing and a third victim who remained in a coma for 22 years before succumbing to her wounds. Tamimi is now on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list, with a $5 million reward for information leading to her arrest.
Ahlam al-Tamimi (Photo: FBI)[Missing Credit]
Yet she has remained in Jordan, where she has lived openly for years, enjoying widespread public support and even hosting a television programme on the Hamas-affiliated Al-Quds channel.
The monarchy has resisted extradition to the US while challenging the enforceability of the treaty itself.
For Roth, the campaign for Tamimi’s extradition is his relentless pursuit. “This is about justice, not revenge,” he says.
His frustration is directed not only at Jordan, but also at organisations he believes should have stood beside him.
At last month’s Jewish News Syndicate International Policy Summit, Roth accused leading American Jewish organisations of ignoring years of his appeals.
He says that in 2020 he wrote to almost every major Jewish organisation in the US, asking them to support his campaign.
“The letter said: here is a declaration committing you to stand with the Roths and demand justice for all of Tamimi’s victims, especially the Americans,” he recalls.
But he says the response from some was silence. “Even some of those who signed did nothing in the years that followed.
"They’ve never taken my phone calls. They don’t answer my letters… They’re all scared of the issue and perhaps of me.
"How do I know? Because they avoid talking about the case when they should be vociferous,” he says of American Jewish organisations.
Rubble-strewn aftermath of suicide bombing at Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem in 2001 (Getty)Getty Images
King Abdullah II of Jordan continues to be welcomed in Washington, where he regularly meets presidents and members of Congress.
Roth notes that until 2019, senior Jewish communal leaders attended breakfasts hosted by the King during his visits.
“Who wants to be on the wrong side of an issue like this?” Roth asks. “A beautiful murdered Jewish girl, her killer walking free, and the person protecting her, the King of Jordan, welcomed in Washington.”
The debate is likely to become more resonant; since October 7, Israel has released thousands of Palestinian prisoners and detainees as part of hostage agreements.
“It embitters us tremendously,” Roth says. “It’s any means to an end, and it’s almost as if there is a wilful desire not to learn anything from the screw-ups.”
As well as Roth’s campaign for justice, his parallel mission has been ensuring that Malki is remembered not for the way she died, but for the way she lived.
The summer she was killed, Malki and a friend had argued their way into a residential camp for children with severe disabilities and demanded to be taken on as volunteers.
Malki with her younger sister Haya (Photo: Arnold Roth)[Missing Credit]
Only trained professionals worked at the camp, so the pair were initially refused – but they did not take no for an answer.
“They ended up spending a remarkable week there,” Roth says.
Only after her death did her parents discover quite how determined Malki had been to help at the facility.
“In the years since, we have met the people who run the camp. They appreciated what kind of special young woman this was.
“You would have loved her. Everyone would have loved her. She was a sweetheart and a good person, with a sunny disposition, always smiling and very musical.”
Malki’s instinct to care for others was rooted in her own family. Her younger sister, Haya-Elisheva, became catastrophically disabled at the age of one.
The experience transformed family life and exposed Arnold and his wife, Frimet, to a system that expected parents to hand responsibility over to institutions.
One doctor’s message, Roth recalls, was blunt. “’We can be better parents than you, so why don’t you step aside and let the serious people take over.’”
After Malki’s murder, the Roths established the Malki Foundation, supporting families in similar positions to them - raising children with severe disabilities in their own homes.
Malki was close to her little sister, and the foundation’s website includes an article she wrote about Haya: “I want to say to all of you that are reading this right now: You are not allowed to lose hope, because maybe a miracle will happen. DO NOT LOSE HOPE.”
Roth says that the charity “reflects Malki’s goodness and her devotion to chesed [Hebrew for loving kindness] in the day-to-day.
“Chesed is not tzedakah. Chesed is about the things you do yourself: actions, deeds. It always has a beneficiary, and it is always selfless. We take money from people and tell them: for you this is tzedakah, but what we’re going to do with it is chesed.”
Rather than prescribing solutions, the foundation asks parents what they need, and provides the means for them to do it. “We tell families: ‘We are here to empower you. We are not going to patronise you. You’re the parent. You know how to make the decision. If you get it wrong, that’s OK because you’ll get it right next time. No one knows this child better than its parents.”
Over the years, the foundation has helped thousands of families on a strictly non-sectarian basis, and a third are Arab Israelis.
So while justice for Malki remains unfinished, every day, in the families supported by the foundation in her name, Malki’s short life continues to shape the lives of others.
To learn more about the Malki Foundation UK, click here.
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