Female Bomber Kills 4 at Gaza Border

A young Palestinian mother of two methodically made her way to the front of a line of workers waiting to pass through the main crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, feigned a medical problem and then detonated a bomb strapped to her body, killing herself and four Israelis and wounding seven people, Israeli authorities said.

At a time when Israel and the Palestinians are deadlocked on how -- or even whether -- to proceed with a U.S.-backed peace plan, the bombing appeared to harden sentiments on both sides against any resumption of contact.

Hamas, together with another Palestinian militant group, claimed responsibility for the attack at the heavily fortified Erez crossing. It was believed to be the first time that the extremist Islamist group had dispatched a woman to carry out a suicide bombing.

The assailant was identified as 22-year-old Reem Riyashi, the mother of a young son and daughter.

In a videotape distributed to news organizations, the dark-eyed, smiling woman, clad in combat fatigues and a green Hamas headband, cradled an assault rifle as one might a child. It was, she said in clear, clipped tones, her most heartfelt wish to “knock on heaven’s doors with the skulls of Zionists.”

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction, claimed joint responsibility for the bombing. Although unusual, it is not unprecedented for major Palestinian militant groups to work together to carry out such an attack.

The bombing occurred about 9:45 a.m. in a terminal where Palestinian workers from the Gaza Strip were undergoing Israeli security checks before being allowed to proceed to their jobs in an adjacent industrial zone.

The main rush of people had passed through several hours earlier, but the bare, metal-roofed terminal was still crowded, witnesses said.

In recent weeks, as many as 4,000 Palestinian workers a day had been going through the checkpoint.

Israeli military authorities swiftly sealed off the crossing, and the army said it was likely to remain closed for some time. Both Israeli and U.S. officials expressed dismay that militant groups would select a target that put livelihoods as well as lives at risk.

“This is a terminal that we opened up to allow ordinary Palestinians to bring bread to their tables, and what do the militant groups do? They bring in a suicide bomber,” said Raanan Gissin, an advisor to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. “This is a strategy to bring chaos, to make normal life for the Palestinians impossible.”

The Palestinian Authority prime minister, Ahmed Korei, called for a mutual cease-fire but did not immediately condemn the bombing. As a rule, senior Palestinian officials are reluctant to characterize attacks aimed mainly at Israeli military personnel as terrorism, because many Palestinians consider them to be legitimate acts of war against enemy combatants.

Korei told reporters in the West Bank that ongoing Israeli military operations in the Palestinian territories had inflamed the situation.

Witnesses described a chaotic scene in the bombing’s aftermath. Rain and wind whipped into the terminal through shattered windows and black smoke billowed outward as injured soldiers and wounded Palestinians cried for help.

Four of the injured were Palestinian workers, according to Israeli and Palestinian medical officials. The dead Israelis included three soldiers and a civilian security inspector, according to military sources.

This was the first suicide bombing of the new year. The last such attack occurred Christmas Day in a suburb of Tel Aviv and left four Israelis dead.

In the past, Hamas leaders have said women’s roles should be to raise children and educate them to fight against Israel. But in the wake of Wednesday’s attack, Hamas spiritual leader Ahmed Yassin told reporters in Gaza City that suicide bombers need not be only men.

“Jihad is the obligation of all Muslims, both men and women,” Yassin said. “Resistance will escalate against the Zionist enemy until they leave our land.”

One Hamas official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the woman was a Hamas loyalist, but suggested she might have acted at least in part on her own rather than going through the usual selection process for suicide attackers. Such assailants are almost always carefully vetted members of Hamas’ military wing.

At Erez, witnesses said the young woman feigned a limp as she approached an Israeli metal detector and told its operator that a surgical plate in her leg would likely raise an alarm.

A female soldier was sent for to carry out an individual search of the woman. But before the soldier could reach the area, the assailant triggered her bomb, the army said.

“She took a few steps, and then set off a very, very large explosive device,” said Maj. Sharon Feingold, a military spokeswoman.

In the videotape she left, Riyashi, who came from a middle-class Palestinian merchant family, speaks of her devotion to her children -- a boy 18 months old and a 3-year-old daughter. “Only God knows how much I loved them,” she says unwaveringly.

Palestinian female suicide bombers are still relatively rare, but the phenomenon has become more common during nearly 3 1/2 years of bitter conflict. A female student affiliated with Islamic Jihad carried out a suicide attack on a crowded restaurant in the Israeli port city of Haifa in October. It was unclear whether Riyashi was the first mother.

Other than the expressions of maternal sentiment, the videotape circulated after the attack bore the same hallmarks as those made by male bombers. Such tapes are almost always part fiery religious sermon, part will and testament, part family farewell. “It was always my desire to turn my body into deadly shrapnel against the Zionists,” Riyashi says on hers.

It was not known whether her sole target was Israeli soldiers at the crossing, or whether she had hoped to make her way into Israel.

Gaza is surrounded by a heavily fortified fence, and the checkpoints are well-guarded. Israeli officials say the tight security accounts for the fact that only one Gaza bomber has managed to infiltrate Israel in the current fighting.

The other group claiming a role in the Erez bombing, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, had claimed responsibility less than 24 hours earlier for the shooting of a group of Jewish settlers on a stretch of West Bank highway that left one Israeli man dead and three wounded.

Also Wednesday, a 22-year-old British activist died overnight in a London hospital after spending nearly nine months in a coma. Tom Hurndall, a member of the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement, was shot in the head in April while trying to help children out of the path of Israeli fire in the southern Gaza Strip, fellow activists said.

On Monday, an Israeli military prosecutor filed a six-count indictment against the soldier who shot him. Following Hurndall’s death, Israeli officials said the charges against the soldier, who was not identified, could be upgraded to manslaughter.

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Special correspondent Fayed abu Shammalah in Gaza City contributed to this report.