The Perpetrators
Both Hamas and the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine initially claimed responsibility, with Hamas saying that the attack was in response to Israel's assassination ten days earlier in Nablus of the two leading Hamas commanders Jamal Mansour and Omar Mansour as well as six civilians including two children.
The suicide bomber who died in the course of carrying out the attack was later identified to be Izz al-Din Shuheil al-Masri from the Palestinian West Bank town of Aqabah. Izz al-Masri was 22 at the time and the son of a successful restaurant owner, and from an affluent land-owning family.
The person who constructed the explosives was a man named Abdallah Barghouti. For his part in this and a string of other attacks, in which 66 civilians were killed, he was handed down 67 life sentences on 30 November 2004.
Read more about this topic: Sbarro Restaurant Suicide Bombing