Inside the Mind of a Suicide Bomber

Hanadi was one of nine children. She went to Jordan to study law and she got engaged to her cousin. She made her father Tayseer and mother Rahmeh very proud, and had never given them cause for anxiety.

Jenin, though, was a difficult place for anyone to grow up and remain unaffected by the conflict. It is home to a huge militant refugee camp. The Palestinian Authority has no real power here. Jenin is the Wild West Bank, run by Arab gunmen. The streets, and sometimes private homes, are their battlegrounds. In April last year, the

'Jenin problem' came to a head. The Israeli army went into town in force, losing an unusual number of men while inflicting dozens of casualties. It refused to allow outside a

Yoram Schweitzer, of Tel Aviv University, says the 'new willingness' of fundamentalist terrorist organisations to use woman despite religious and traditional objections is simply a cynical realisation of the tactical advantages conferred by their innocent outward appearances. This enables women more easily to bypass security measures. Leaders take advantage of their innocence, enthusiasm, loss of focus, and often their personal distress and thirst for revenge. Hanadi fitted this scenario perfectly. Other women, it seems, are brought to this terrible decision to kill and be killed by the extraordinary pressure of dysfunctional life. the incident that can push one individual over the edge may seem trivial but it is enough. Like the time when one 16 year old girl had to undergo a full body search by a male Israeli soldier at a checkpoint. As a muslim female she felt totally humiliated. Later that day, she went back to the checkpoint, drew a knife and was immediatelyh shot dead by Israeli soldiers.

gencies in for more that a week, provoking condemnation. The battle levelled a neighbourhood. In June 2003

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Aviv University, West Bank, Christians Jewish, Jihad Hanadi, Staff Maxim, Vehicles Palestinian, Jordan Israel, Hanadi's Fadi, Maxim Restaurant, Islamic Jihad, maxim restaurant, shot dead, islamic jihad, west bank, israeli soldiers,