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A Terror Attack That Changed Israel — and Inspired a New Book
Alisa Flatow.
Thirty years ago, my childhood neighbor Alisa Flatow — a Brandeis college student on a semester abroad studying at a Jerusalem seminary — was mortally injured by a Palestinian suicide bomber in Israel while riding a bus to the beach in Gush Katif.
Alisa’s father, Steve, received the news while at Sunday morning prayers in our hometown of West Orange, New Jersey. My own father and Steve raced together to Israel, while I flew to Israel from London to meet them to serve as a translator.
We gathered at Soroka Hospital in Beersheva, where Alisa was in a coma from which she would never awake. After consulting with doctors and rabbis in Israel and America, I watched as Steve and his wife, Roz, made the painful but heroic decision to donate Alisa’s organs to six desperate recipients, both Jewish and Arab.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the Flatows’ decision revolutionized attitudes in Israel towards organ donation.
Long a fraught issue because of Jewish views on the integrity of the body, the whole country was moved by the decision of an American family to put aside their personal shock and grief to offer a chance at life to those in need. And sadly, since October 7, 2023, this change of attitude has facilitated many life-changing organ donations from victims of the attack and subsequent war.
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin captured the moment in a public statement thanking the Flatows for their magnanimous gesture. He said, “Today, Alisa’s heart is alive and beating in Jerusalem.”
I stood at Ben Gurion Airport with my then-fiancé Becky, Alisa’s high school classmate and friend, as her flag-draped coffin was loaded onto an El Al flight for burial in the United States.
We could not make sense of the unfairness of fate, or the plot behind God’s plan for those religiously-inclined. I had served on the front lines with the IDF and walked away unscathed. Alisa had gone to the beach and was now dead.
The existential questions we wordlessly mulled on the tarmac have left Alisa’s story kicking around in Becky’s heart for 30 years. Life has moved on for the rest of us — weddings, children, jobs — but Alisa is forever 20, a tragic reality that particularly hits home in this year when Becky turned 50 and Alisa should have too.
Alisa’s murder, and the Flatows’ dogged and successful pursuit of legal redress against the Iranian sponsors of jihadist terrorism, is a story that has been written about. Terrorism, Iran, Gaza. A sad reminder that October 7 is just the latest chapter in a generations-long saga.
Rather than again retelling that tale, my wife was inspired by Alisa’s story to publish her recent debut fiction novel, Alive and Beating.
The book follows six people from diverse backgrounds and neighborhoods in Jerusalem, all of whom are awaiting organ transplants. The interwoven short stories track a single day when a suicide bombing will change their lives forever. In a place where ancient divides often seem insurmountable, these characters — Leah, a Hasidic young woman; Yael, a daughter of Holocaust survivors; Hoda, a Palestinian hairdresser; David, an Iraqi restaurant owner; Severin, a Catholic priest; and Youssef and Yosef, two teenage boys whose fates are inextricably linked — are united, despite their differences, by a shared goal of being healthy and finding meaning in their lives.
The book was written before October 7, 2023, and was intended to explore the core of shared humanity that links us all, even as ancient blood feuds continue to plague the Holy Land.
Obviously, the events of October 7 and its aftermath have made the hope of finding that commonality ever more distant. But, in tribute to Alisa, it remains a hopeful story for a seemingly hopeless time.
The book is available on Amazon, and I hope you will support all Jewish authors at a time when the literary world is awash with boycotts and blacklists of anyone and anything Jewish or relating to Israel.
Daniel Wolf is a lawyer living in Teaneck, New Jersey.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.