Jun. 20, 2005 12:57 | Updated Jun. 20, 2005 22:15Female suicide...

Jun. 20, 2005 12:57 | Updated Jun. 20, 2005 22:15
Female suicide bomber caught
By MARGOT DUDKEVITCH

A female suicide bomber who planned to blow up at the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba on Monday, the same hospital where she received treatment for burns in the past, was caught at the Erez terminal crossing wearing explosives stitched to her underwear. Security forces were alerted when the biometric screener located at the terminal crossing, revealed that Wafa Samir Ibrahim Bas,21, of the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, was wearing explosives.

Security forces immediately shut down the crossing and Bas was ordered to strip inside a concrete enclosure. During the process she attempted several times to detonate the explosives but failed. Arguing during the procedure with the soldiers who issued orders over a loudspeaker, she eventually shed the explosives which were later blown up by a robot. Officials estimate that the bomb contained ten kilograms of explosives.

Hours later in a Channel One interview at the Shikma Prison in Ashkelon, Bas at first declared that she intended to kill as many Israelis as possible. "I love Allah, I love the land of Palestine and I am a member of the Al Aksa Brigades," she said.

Later however, she admitted that she had been taken advantage of by the Al Aksa Brigades and was a victim. Asked if she intended to blow up at Soroka, she said "no, we have hospitals, I was to blow up in a crowded area."

As the reality sank in she said "yesterday I was free, I was a bird flying in the sky." She claimed that her dispatchers told her their own children were unable to carry out the attack because they were too young. When asked why her dispatchers themselves didn't carry out the attack, she replied that she didn't know. Breaking down and crying, she asked for her mother's forgiveness. "I am sorry mother, forgive me, I should have listened to you," she said.

Bas suffered severe injuries when a gas canister exploded in her house while she was cooking last year. In the framework of humanitarian assistance offered by Israel to the Palestinians, she was admitted to the Soroka Medical Center and treated between last December and January this year for burns. Taking advantage of the fact that she had access into Israel and was due to be seen by doctors at the hospital on Monday, she agreed to a request by Al Aksa Brigade commanders in Gaza to don the explosives and blow up as instructed, in a "crowded area in the hospital."

Security officials noted that this is not the first time terror organizations recruit Palestinians to launch suicide bomb attacks on their behalf, taking advantage of the special permission they received on humanitarian grounds to enter Israel for medical treatment.

"Unfortunately this is not the first time that the Palestinian Authority has failed to live up to their security responsibilities," said Col. Yoav Mordechai the head of the Erez district liaison office told the Jerusalem Post. Mordechai said that a request to allow Palestinian policewomen to check Palestinian females at the crossing before they enter the Israeli side was received positively by the Palestinians in the past. "Today we demanded from PA Minister of Interior Nasser Yousef that Palestinian policewomen be deployed on their side of the terminal and check every female before they reach the Israeli side of the crossing," he said. "Once again the Palestinians have shot themselves in the foot. The situation will require us to carry out more stringent inspections and those who suffer will be those requiring medical treatment," he said. While the terminal crossing will remain open, those requiring special permits for medical treatment in the future will have to go through a longer procedure in order to meet security requirements, Mordechai said. While there have been some positive changes on the ground , with Palestinians deploying extra security forces at the crossing in recent weeks, no aggressive action is taken by them to thwart attacks or nab terrorists he said.
A senior Israeli security official said human rights groups have often harshly criticized Israel in the past for carrying out inspections on sick Palestinians requiring medical treatment in Israel. "Our dilemma is how to differentiate between those who really seek treatment and sometimes those who may suffer from terminal illnesses and figure they have nothing to lose by agreeing to carry out a suicide attack," the official said. "They are the ones we most fear, as they have nothing to lose, they gain popularity by becoming shahids (martyrs), and they are assured that their families will be taken care of. They are the ones we most fear," he said.

Several examples in which Palestinians took advantage of Israel's humanitarian assistance to launch attacks include the arrest of a Hamas fugitive in Ramallah in March this year. The fugitive, a resident of Gaza, succeeded in entering the West Bank on the pretext that he was a possible kidney donor. He had planned to launch a suicide bomb attack in Israel.

In December last year, security forces arrested Hamad Abu Lahiya in Bakka al Gharbiya. Abu Lahiya , a resident of the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza admitted to investigators that he was recruited by the Hamas in Gaza and was to carry out a suicide bomb attack in Israel. He said that he succeeded in entering Israel after showing false papers to officials at the Erez crossing, which stated he was suffering from cancer and required treatment in Israel.

In December last year, security forces arrested Hassan Tom and Mohammed Jiaror at the Rafah international border crossing. Both had been recruited by the Fatah Al Aksa Brigades in Gaza. Tom used false papers showing he required hospital treatment in Israel. He was to have planted bomb on the railway tracks near Netanya and blown up a train. He was also ordered to murder an Israeli citizen and bury the body so that Fatah operatives in Gaza could demand the release of security prisoners in exchange for the Israeli's return. Jiaror was arrested a week before Tom at the Rafah crossing.

Elsewhere in the Gaza Strip, a total of six mortar shells were fired at Israeli settlements in central, southern and northern Gaza. No one was wounded in any of the attacks.