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Wafa al-Bis, the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades terrorist who intended to blow herself up and take down the doctors and nurses who had previously helped her, at a Beersheva hospital. (AP)
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06/22
IMRA |
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners June 22, 2005 |
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The 21-year-old Palestinian, with the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades (an offshoot of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction), was arrested carrying explosives at a Gaza checkpoint, where she admitted she planned to blow herself up in a Beersheva hospital. Wafa al-Bis had previously received treatment, as a gesture of humanitarian aid, for burns she incurred in a "cooking accident" at the hospital she intended to blow up.
According to army officials, when she was caught, she tried to blow herself up at the Erez crossing point between Gaza and Israel, but the explosives did not detonate.
Bis said on Israeli TV she wanted to be a suicide bomber, saying her "dream was to be a martyr," but then later told foreign journalists the explosives were planted on her without her knowledge.
Israeli officials said Bis, who comes from Jabaliyain Gaza, was burnt in a cooking accident five months ago, and had received treatment on humanitarian grounds in the Beersheba hospital.
They said she was making another trip for follow-up treatment on Monday, but planned to blow herself up instead.
The bombing attempt was only the latest in a series of terrorist attacks involving the exploitation of Israel's humanitarian flexibility in the face of a very real security threat.
Monday's abortive suicide attack at the Erez crossing is especially shocking for the Israeli public for a number of reasons:
To begin with, the female bomber was entering Israel using a special medical permit issue in order to provide her with follow-up treatment for burns sustained five months earlier in a home cooking accident. At that time, the woman's life had been saved by the same Israeli doctors and nurses who she was now planning to blow up.
Despite this difficult reality, many human rights groups are only too quick to criticize Israeli security procedures at checkpoints, such as its insistence on inspecting ambulances.
The attempted attack by a woman terrorist from Gaza illustrates again, in the most appalling terms, the terrorist organizations' cynical exploitation of the weaker elements of Palestinian society, such as women and children.
Israel had passed on specific intelligence to the PA concerning the terrorists' intentions of dispatching this bomber. However the PA did nothing to prevent the attack. This further demonstrates to Israelis the inability or unwillingness of the PA to prevent terrorism and dismantle terror infrastructures as it has repeatedly and publicly committed itself to do, both to Israel and the international community.
The AP and IMRA contributed to this report.
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