[1][2] A few hours prior to the bombing, Palestinian militants carried out a suicide attack in a bus stop next to the military base Tzrifin.

A few hours before the bombing, on September 9, Applebaum attended the mikveh (ritual bath), as required by Halakha (Jewish law) for all brides prior to their wedding.

[5] On the day of the bombing, September 9, security guards in the vicinity of Café Hillel were told to be on the lookout for a suicide bomber.

[1] On Tuesday evening, 9 September 2003, at 11:20 pm, a Palestinian suicide bomber approached the "Café Hillel" coffee shop in the German Colony neighborhood of Jerusalem.

[2][8] At around 11:20 pm, a security guard stationed at a nearby pizza parlor noticed a man walking by with a bulky square-shaped box under his shirt.

[10] Nava (or Naava)[5] Applebaum (also spelled Appelbaum)[2] (Hebrew: נאווה אפלבאום; c. 1983 – September 9, 2003)[11] was a 20-year-old Israeli-American woman who was murdered together with her father on the evening before her wedding by a Palestinian suicide bomber.

[5][12] David Applebaum was a prominent emergency department doctor well known for work on methods for assisting suicide bombing victims.

[13] The family later moved to Israel, where David became chief of the emergency department and trauma services at Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Medical Center, and Nava graduated from Horev Girls High School.

[12][8] Hundreds of friends and relatives traveling to Israel for the wedding arrived to find that they would be attending her funeral instead, on the day she was supposed to get married.

[5][19] The assailant was Hamas member Ramez Fahmi Izz al-Din Abu Salim (short: Ramez Abu Salim), age 22, who originated from the village of Rantis, and had been a student of Birzeit[2] or Al-Quds Open University (Al-Bireh campus),[dubious – discuss] where he acted as an Islamic Block activist.

[23] Journalist Yossi Klein Halevi described the incident as an "epic tragedy", and wrote: "If a new book of the Bible were ever written about the modern return to Zion, it would have to include the story of the Applebaums.

[25][26] A few days after the bombing, another engaged couple decided to hold their Sheva Brachot celebrations at the site of the suicide attack.