Using Palestinian Women as Bombs

As a Palestinian woman approached a temporary Israeli checkpoint one afternoon last week in Beit Hanoun, a town in the northern Gaza Strip, Israeli soldiers asked her to stop. Instead, she refused and triggered her suicide belt, killing only herself, but injuring one Israeli soldier. A Palestinian terrorist group, Islamic Jihad, claimed responsibility for the bombing and later released a videotape of the young woman holding a rifle in one hand and the Koran in the other. Merfat Masoud, an 18-year-old student at Gaza's Islamic University, asked her parents to forgive her action, saying, "I love you very much, but I love Palestine and God more."

The woman's detonation marked the second time within days that the women of Beit Hanoun made the news. The previous Friday a group of women had intervened against the Israel Defense Force military operation "Autumn Clouds," which aimed to eradicate the constant threat of Qassam rockets fired from the Gaza Strip into Israeli towns. As Palestinian gunmen, mostly Hamas militants, took cover in Beit Hanoun's Al Nasser Mosque, they realized that the best way for them to circumvent Israel's army was to involve women as human shields. Hamas's local radio station — Al Aqsa Radio — broadcast a call to women to come to the rescue of the trapped gunmen.

Hundreds flocked to the mosque, many of them Hamas supporters and some related to the holed-up militants. During the mosque standoff, two Palestinian women were killed, but Hamas achieved its goal, as the 60 gunmen managed to escape, some dressed in women's clothing.

Masoud's operation marks the ninth time that a Palestinian female suicide bomber was successfully deployed. In the past, numerous Palestinian groups, from secular Fatah to religious Hamas, were able to use what Palestinian society considered worthless women — barren, divorced, adulterous, or with some other stain on their reputation — as human bombs. Some of the women volunteered for their deadly mission, and at least one may have been coerced.

Wafa Idris, a barren and divorced 28-year-old who worked as a paramedic, was the first Palestinian female suicide bomber. She blew herself up in January 2002 in Jerusalem. Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a group formed during the recent intifada that is affiliated with Yasser Arafat's Fatah, claimed responsibility for the attack. Two years later, in January 2004, Hamas sent its first woman — notable for being the first mother to conduct such an attack — in a joint operation with Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Further Israeli investigation revealed that Reem Raiyshi, the 22-year-old mother of two infants who blew herself up at Gaza's Erez crossing, may have been coerced into perpetrating the attack in order to preserve her family's honor. She allegedly had been unfaithful to her husband, who, in an ironic turn of fate, was the one driving her to her final destination. Her lover might have been her recruiter for the attack.

Palestinian society is very patriarchal and conservative, and with the rise of Hamas, has become increasingly religious. Furthermore, a religious belief in martyrdom prevails in numerous strata of Palestinian society, where death for the Palestinian cause is more highly regarded than life. This belief is sustained by a continuous teaching of hate and promotion of violence. Hamas's spiritual leader, Sheik Ahmad Yassin, condoned the use of female suicide bombers from the beginning, although at the time of the first operation, conducted by Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, he said that Hamas had enough male volunteers and therefore did not need to deploy women. But after his group sent Raiyshi, he issued a fatwa, a religious edict, stating that "jihad is an imperative for Muslim men and women."

One is tempted to conclude from this month's events that Palestinian women are taking the initiative and playing a bigger role in the Palestinian national struggle, but such an assumption would be erroneous. In both incidents — Masoud's suicide bombing and the mosque standoff — the women were used. In the mosque standoff, women were used as human shields in order to bypass security and attract international media coverage. Hamas attained both goals, as the Palestinian terrorists fled and journalists picked up the news. Most reports focused on the women's deaths rather than on their cynical use by Hamas.

Masoud was sent by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a group established in the early 1980s that is headquartered in Syria and is supported and inspired by Iran. Further investigation will provide details about this woman's background, her relationship to the group, and her possible motivation.

But one must not forget that behind the bombing lies a well-organized terrorist infrastructure. It is mostly men who govern this infrastructure and give the green light to any lethal mission. Women are rarely involved in the higher echelons of the decision-making process of these groups. Women may volunteer, or, as occurred in the past, women might be coerced to conduct a murderous strike, but the woman's role is ultimately dictated by the patriarchal hierarchy that rules Palestinian society and its terrorist groups.

Ms. Beyler is a counterterrorism analyst based in Washington, D.C.