Suicide bomber caught with explosives in her underwear
Wednesday June 22 2005
A WOMAN on a suicide bombing mission was caught at an Israeli checkpoint with 20lbs of high explosives hidden in her underwear.
The Israelis found the bomb when Wafa al-Biss (21) was ordered to strip. They released CCTV pictures of the arrest Tuesday to show that a terrorist threat remains despite a lull in the intifada since the Palestinian-Israeli ceasefire agreement at the Sharm el-Sheikh summit in February.
They also took the unusual step of allowing the woman to speak to the media. She wept after saying she had wanted to be a suicide bomber since childhood. Then she broke down, pleading for leniency, before officers of Shin Bet, the domestic security service, halted the interview.
"I didn't kill anyone," she wailed. "Do you think they will forgive me?"
Since the ceasefire there has been one suicide bombing that led to the deaths of five Israelis. Israel has killed more than 10 Palestinians for alleged security infringements in the occupied territories.
Security officials working at the Erez crossing, the main transit point between Israel and the Gaza Strip, said they became suspicious of al-Biss because her gait was strange.
Fearing she might be a suicide bomber, they isolated her and ordered her to strip. The images taken from a security camera showed her removing her black head scarf and gown. As she continued, the explosives were shown sewn into her underwear. It is possible she tried to detonate the device as she stripped only for the bomb to malfunction. Army sappers took away the device and blew it up safely.
Residents of Gaza are only allowed through the Erez checkpoint subject to strict rules. Al-Biss was being allowed through to receive treatment at an Israeli hospital after she was disfigured at her refugee camp home when a gas canister exploded on a fire while she was cooking.
Colonel Avi Levy, a senior Israeli army commander, said extremists were "cynically exploiting" Israel's humanitarian gesture.
During her television interview, which lasted more than an hour, al-Biss appeared confident and defiant but became shaky.
"My dream was to be a martyr. I believe in death," she began. But she became tearful and began to contradict herself. At one point she denied she wanted to carry out an attack. When she denied any involvement in a suicide bombing, her minders intervened. (©Daily Telegraph, London)
- Tim Butcher in Jerusalem
