Palestinian girl kills two Israelis in market suicide bombing

Associated Press

DHEISHEH REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank — The day before she blew herself up outside a Jerusalem supermarket, Ayat Akhras sat with her fiance and talked about graduating from high school and getting married in the summer, he said.

Akhras, 18, detonated explosives strapped to her body Friday afternoon, during the shopping rush before stores close for the Jewish Sabbath. A security guard who blocked Akhras from entering the store was killed, along with a woman shopper. More than 25 people were wounded.

Akhras was described by family and friends as a quiet, diligent schoolgirl who never let on that she was a member of the militant Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade.

Classmate Rania Abdullah said she saw Akhras at about 8:30 a.m. Friday in the streets of the Dheisheh refugee camp, never guessing where her friend was headed.

"She said ‘Hi,’ and then I continued walking. I was surprised when I heard that she blew herself up in Jerusalem," Abdullah said.

Standing in front of Akhras’ house in Dheisheh, near the town of Bethlehem, some of her friends said they were pained at losing her, but they understood her reasons.

"It was a courageous act, and all of us wish to be in her shoes," Abdullah said, as others hugged pictures of the dead teen-ager to their chests.

Her fiance, Shadi Abu Laban, said he had spent Thursday evening at her family’s home and listened as she spoke of the exams she was preparing for. She was determined to graduate before marrying, her family said.

"I will never forget her, she will always stay alive inside my heart," Abu Laban said, his voice shaking.

In a farewell video prepared by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the high school senior heaped scorn on Arab leaders.

"I am going to fight instead of the sleeping Arab armies who are watching Palestinian girls fighting alone, it is an intefadeh until victory," she read from a statement, her head wrapped in a traditional Palestinian headdress. Intefadeh is Arabic for the uprising.

Hours after her daughter carried out the attack, Fatma Akhras was in shock. "Why didn’t she tell me she was going to die?" she screamed. "I would have stopped her." Female relatives held her hand as she wept.

Akhras was the second Palestinian woman bomber. In February, 21-year-old university student Dareen Abu Aisheh blew herself up at an Israeli checkpoint in the West Bank, killing herself and wounding three Israelis.

In January, 27-year-old Wafa Idries, a paramedic, blew herself up in Jerusalem, killing herself and an elderly Israeli man, but it was never established whether she was a suicide bomber or whether explosives she was carrying to a drop-off point went off prematurely.