My son, Asaf, 17 years old and in the eleventh grade, was murdered in a terror attack. On March 5, 2003, a Hamas suicide bomber exploded on bus #37 in our hometown of Haifa. Seventeen men, women, and children were killed—nine of them schoolchildren returning home from another day at school.
Even though I was born and raised in Israel, I was shocked. I couldn’t understand what could drive a person to take his own life just to kill as many Jews as possible. I couldn’t comprehend the hatred that fueled such an act. Determined to understand, I learned that the mother of the suicide bomber—who, according to Muslim customs, should have welcomed mourners in black clothing and served bitter coffee—chose instead to wear normal clothes and hand out sweets. I was astonished that this mother could hate my child more than she loved her own.
That was when I realized we were facing a problem far deeper than we acknowledge. If hatred is taught at home, reinforced in schools, and celebrated in kindergartens—where children are dressed as suicide bombers and school performances glorify killing settlers—then another round of fruitless negotiations, like those we have seen in the past, will not bring change.
Asaf was an 11th-grader when a Hamas terrorist took his life in Haifa, Israel. (Zur Family)
Instead, I choose to fight for the future—to ensure that nothing like October 7 ever happens again. Israel must adopt a harsher policy against terror. No more containment, no more warnings, no more empty threats. We must act differently than we have in the past if we are to be safe.
My son Asaf was murdered. But I have three more sons and three grandchildren living in Israel. At Asaf’s open grave, I swore that I would do everything in my power to keep them safe—and that “Never Again” would apply, first and foremost, to my family.
Yossi Zur lost his son, Asaf, in 2003, in a terrorist bombing in his hometown of Haifa.
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