Hanadi Barbie

  Early one Saturday morning, 27-year-old Hanadi Jaradat waved goodbye to her parents and hurried off down the street. She had business to do - something about a land transaction. An apprentice lawyer, she was only a few days away from finishing her internship and opening her own office.

  Indeed, she was on a suicide mission. She changed from her traditional Arab robe and scarf into blue jeans. Sporting a ponytail and wearing a bomb belt. She slipped through a border checkpoint, and made her way to a busy Arab-Israeli restaurant in Haifa called Maxim.

  The 40-year-old Maxim, co-owned by an Arab family and a Jewish family, a symbol of hope and peaceful co-existence,was full of families on the eve of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. Somehow, she dodged the security check common to Israeli restaurants. Once inside, she detonated her bomb belt, containing over 30 pounds of explosives and packed with nails, bolts and metal shards, in the center of the restaurant. 22 people died, including herself and three generations of two different Israeli families, and injured dozens more. Five of the dead were Israeli-Arab Christians, and three were Jewish children, one an infant.

  The blast, which eyewitnesses said had "the force of an earthquake," Survivors trying to flee were blocked by overturned tables and the bodies of dead and injured patrons as they struggled to depart. Windows were blown out and interior walls were riddled with holes, wires hung down from the ceiling and clusters of pipes were exposed. Chunks were blown off pillars throughout the restaurant.

  Beneath the smoke, blood and bits of broken crockery dotted the floor alongside the severed head of a woman, presumably Hanadi's. On the steps outside the security guard lay face down, his shaved head and white T-shirt streaked with blood.

  Police investigated how Hanadi managed to get past the security guard. Many male security guards in Israel are reluctant to check female customers for fear of harrassment charges. The security guard on duty was initial investigations was a waiter posted for the first time as a guard, and was not at the door at the time of the bombing. He was among the three Israeli Arabs killed in the attack.

  Hanadi was the sixth Palestinian woman to become a suicide bomber, but only the second for PIJ.

  Hanadi's family spoke of their pride and said she had avenged the death of her brother at the hands of the Israeli army. The unmarried woman had witnessed the death of her brother, Fadi, and cousin, Saleh, during Israeli counter-terrorism operations in Jenin. Fadi and Saleh were not innocent bystanders in a restaurant; as PIJ terrorists they were already at war with Israel. Fardi's and Salah's faces appeared on Islamic Jihad martyrdom posters plastered to the city's walls

  The Jaradats are related to Anas Jaradat, former head of PIJ in Jenin, who sent the perpetrators of the terrorist attack at the Karkur junction, in which 14 Israeli civilians were killed and 28 wounded; and the attack at Meggido Junction, in which 17 Israelis were killed and 42 wounded. Saleh later assumed Anas' position.

  "She was very normal," said her mother. "But when I heard that there was an explosion in Haifa, I tried to call her. As a mother, I felt something might have happened."

  "I am very proud of what she has done," said her father, Taisir, who is said to have had a special emotional bond with his eldest daughter. As a video of his daughter shortly before she embarked on her suicide mission played, Mr. Jaradat told Al-Jazeera interviewers, "She is a very strong person. She would pray and read the Koran every day. She read the Koran from start to finish six times, Every devout Muslim can appreciate that."

  He added that those who wanted to pay condolence calls not bother: "I will accept only congratulations for what she did," he told his interviewers. "This was a gift she gave me, the homeland and the Palestinian people. Therefore, I am not crying for her. Even though the most precious thing has been taken from me."

  "We are receiving congratulations from people," said her 15-year-old brother, Thaher. "Why should we cry? It is like her wedding today, the happiest day for her."

  Why would a young lawyer, an educated woman with a good salary whose whole life was ahead of her, blow herself up in a packed restaurant, with the sole purpose of killing as many total strangers as possible, none of whom had ever done anything to her?

  Saraya al-Quds (The Jerusalem Battalion), military wing of PIJ, which sent Hanadi on her deadly mission, provided its official answer to that question. The organization disdtributed a pocket-sized card in girls' schools in the Gaza strip celebrating Hanadi as the "bride of the Haifa martyrdom operation" and declared: "The "wedding" in Haifa will teach the Zionists an unforgettable lesson."

  Hanadi's martyrdom video is unusually short, just over two minutes, and the camerawork is amateurish - the work of students. There is none of the usual robotic chanting of the Koran and long-winded speeches. Hanadi, modestly dressed in a tight-fitting white headscarf, appears nervous as if auditioning for a part in a local dramatic society play. Behind her are the black and gold flags of Islamic Jihad and a poster of her law degree graduation with her ruby lips and heavy Western-style make-up.

  "By the will of God I decided to be the sixth martyr who makes her body full with splinters in order to enter every Zionist heart who occupied our country. We are not the only ones who will taste death from their occupation. As they sow so will they reap."

  The bride of death's language is suffused with sexuality but the real woman in the video timidly puts her face in her hands out of embarrassment and blushes as her set piece ends. The camera pulls back to show she is standing under her brother's martyrdom poster. And thus is the blood red fruit of martyrdom complete.

Hanadi's Background

  Hanadi, the eldest of the nine children of Taisir and Rahmah Jaradat was born September 22, 1975 in the village of Silat Al Hartiya near Jenin (where Abdullah Azzam, the spiritual mentor of Bin Laden, was born). She was said to be religious; praying daily and reading the Q'uran. She graduated from Fatima Hanuon elementary school and Al Zahara high school in Jenin. In 1999 she had graduated Jarash law school in Jordan and returned to the West Bank. In the last two years she worked at a Jenin law office as a trainee lawyer.

  According to a childhood friend, Jaradat was a very determined woman, self-confidant, and even stubborn, in the pursuit of success and personal achievements.

  Something must have wrong between her return to the West Bank after graduating law school and June 2003, when two of her family members were killed. There seems to be a great disparity between her professional achievements and her personal life. In a traditional orthodox society such as Palestinian society, a woman of her age (27) who is still unmarried inevitably faces the question of why she is still single. How did this affect her psychological predisposition to solve her personal “unfinished business” by her willingness to be a suicide bomber and escape her dead end?

  The story of Hanadi Jaradat combines a tough family situation, religious zealotry - and revenge.

  Her father worked as a construction laborer and was barely able to provide for his family. The family lived in a small, rented house. Hanadi has four sisters. One is married and lives in Jordan; the others are unmarried and live at home, though one is engaged.

  When Hanadi was 21 there was talk at the time that she would soon become engaged and marry. The intended was Abed al-Rahim Jaradat, a distant cousin. According to the rumors, Hanadi was in love with him and he with her; the parents on both sides had already agreed on everything between them. But before the engagement took place, he was killed in an encounter with the Israeli security forces.

  Her life then took a different turn. She remained at home and helped provide for the family. A cousin, an Israeli citizen residing in Galilee, who asks that he not be identified by name for fear of his safety, says that Hanadi was exceptional in many respects. She was impressive, polished, very intelligent, sharp, devoted and loyal. Of all the daughters, she was also the most religious, never failing to dress modestly and spending much time in prayer and in reading the Koran.

  A few years ago, her father fell ill with cancer. After treatment in Jordan and his condition improved, but only temporarily: within a few months there was a regression. He stopped working. As usual in such circumstances, the burden of providing for the family fell on the eldest son. Fadi worked at whatever jobs he could find and was helped out by the eldest sister, Hanadi.

  Hanadi's ambition was to attend university. She decided to study law in Jordan, where her sister lives, and Fadi paid for her to attend Philadelphia University in Amman. She graduated and landed a job in a Jenin law office. It was assumed that she would be would be a provider for the family.

  One relative thinks she found the time to start thinking about the idea of meeting someone, marrying and raising a family of her own. At 29, she was old for a single woman in the Palestinian society. However, her brother and cousin were killed.

  Saleh was wanted for attempting to infiltrate a booby-trapped car into Israel. He and Fadi, wanted as an accomplice of Saleh, fled. Saleh pulled a pistol and was killed. Fadi was wounded after refusing to stop and surrender. Fadi was treated by IDF medical personnel, but died of his wounds.

  Over Fadi's grave Hanadi vowed revenge, "Your blood will not have been shed in vain," she is quoted as saying by the Jordanian daily Al-Arab al-Yum. "The murderer will yet pay the price and we will not be the only ones who are crying. ...let the whole world be erased." Soon thereafter Hanadi became active in PIJ activities.

  According to a sister, "Hanadi has very much changed since Fadi won martyrdom. She started sitting alone for long hours and pledged to avenge her brother and other Palestinians killed by the Israeli occupation army." "But she was at the same time sociable, lovable and notable for her altruism," she added in tears.

  The death of two family member at the hands of Israeli forces was no doubt the trigger, the catalyst for Hanadi's final act. So far, there is no evidence of how Jaradat came to be involved in the mission. According to Israeli sources, she was recruited by a female PIJ operative from the village of Arabeh. It would appear that she was approached by the organization during the period of mourning for her brother and her cousin. From past cases, it is well known that HAMAS and PIJ use funerals and mourner's booths as platforms for recruitment. These organizations are able to exploit the emotionally loaded circumstances, when feelings for revenge are high for their own ends.

  Hanadi's grief was manipulated by PIJ to serve the organization's own agenda. Her emotional predisposition and her status as a misfit was well known in the village. Those around her have remarked that she was “easy prey” for PIJ “sharks”. As has happened in previous cases, the manipulation of her emotional state was not difficult. On October 4, 2003, Hanadi had her revenge.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Female Suicide Bombers

  Palestinian women are becoming active terrorists. Some women assist in planning and supporting terrorist attacks, others become out suicide bombers. THere are advantages to using women as terrorists, especially inside Israeli cities. Women are often perceived as “the gentle sex”, much less likely to arouse suspicion than are men. Female terrorists westernize their appearance, adopting modern hair styles and short skirts in order to blend into the crowd.

  In most of these cases, the women involved were from two extremes of Palestinian society; they did not fit the image of the traditional Palestinian woman. Some of them were professional women with education and training far beyond the average, while others were common young women with neither education nor career. All these women were united, however, in carrying a large amount of personal “baggage.”

  Much can be learned from studying and interviewing women who attempted to carry out suicide attacks but were caught before they had a chance to actualize their plans. Palestinian women terrorists are not new. Atef Eleyan, a senior PIJ activist, planned to perpetrate a suicide attack using a car bomb in Jerusalem in 1987. Atef was jailed in Israel for ten years and was released in 1997.

Other women terrorists include:

Wafa Idris kicked off the female martyr operations on January 28, 2002 in West Jerusalem. At least two people were killed, including herself, and more than seventy people were injured.

Dareen Abu Eisha blew herself up in an Israeli military checkpoint north of the West Bank on February 27, 2002, leaving three Israeli soldiers killed.

On March 29, 2002, Ayat al-Akhras blew herself up in a popular market in West Jerusalem, killing two Israelis and injuring dozens.

Andaleeb Takata, from Bethlehem, carried out her operation on April 12, 2002, killing six Israelis and injuring 85 others in occupied Jerusalem.

Heba Azem Draghema, who was a student in Al-Quds Open University, detonated her explosives belt in the Israeli coastal town of Netanya on May 19, 2002, killing three Israeli soldiers and injuring 56 others.

Rheim Saleh al-Riyashi, a 22-year-old mother of two, blew herself up at the Erez crossing between Gaza and Israel killing four Israelis and injuring at least ten others, including Palestinians.

  PIJ decided to upgrade its operational capabilities, PIJ launched a public campaign to recruit women. The intent was to introduce new methods to elude Israeli efforts to deter and profile suicide bombers.

  PIJ focuses its recruitment efforts in the northern West Bank, Jenin in particular. A well-trained network of operatives, including some highly-skilled women, seeks to identify potential candidates in northern West Bank universities, as well as in towns and villages. Once a prospective suicide bomber is found, the organization invests considerable effort in convincing her that this kind of activity does not contradict the Islamic principles nor “the daily duties of the Muslim woman.”

  The organization's first success in recruiting women was Heiba Daragmeh, a 19 year-old student in Quds Open University from Tubas village in the Jenin district. On 19 May 2003, she detonated an explosive devise strapped to her body in front of a shopping mall in Afula, killing three civilians and injuring 83.

Conclusions

  The tactical and operational modus operandi of Palestinian suicide attacks is well understood and has been mapped in its all shapes and forms, including the chain of events from recruitment throughout preparation and launching of the attack. The Israeli answer to this threat is excellent intelligence combined with real-time operational capabilities.

  Understanding the motivation of the female suicide bomber is much more difficult. Past experience shows that there is generally no single overriding motivation for her action, but rather a number of motivations working in concert. These motivations interact with the potential attacker's emotional predispositions, creating an explosive mixture that needs only some traumatic event to release all its hidden destructive energy. A skillful terrorist operative can easily identify a candidate in this emotional state, and coolly manipulate her into becoming a weapon for his organization.

  “The Americans love Pepsi-Cola, we love death,” said Maulana Inyadullah of al-Qaeda in the aftermath of September 11. He and Hanadi Jaradat love death so much that they are ready to bring it upon others in line with their understanding of the ways of Allah: “Those who love the life of this world more than the Hereafter, who hinder (men) from the Path of Allah and seek therein something crooked: they are astray by a long distance” (Sura 14:3).

  Shahada (martyrdom) has wide appeal among Muslims. According to Mahmoud Al-Zahhar of HAMAS, a 2002 call for suicide bombers at the University of Alexandria in Egypt resulted in two thousand students signing up “to die a martyr's death.” Suicide bombing is not simply a last desperate resort of the poverty-stricken oppressed; rather, it springs from an understanding of Islam that is, however much we would wish it away, founded on traditional concepts and rooted in the deepest longings of many Muslims. As such the debate within the Muslim world is at an impasse — and the bombings continue, not only in Israel but also in Kashmir, Chechnya, and other battlegrounds of jihad.

  Hanadi Jaradat's act was the tragic result of a vicious cycle. She died not for the promise of 72 virgins in paradise but for the sure and certain reward that she would kill as many Jews as possible in the crowded restaurant. The terrorist actions of her brother and cousin invited a violent reaction from Israeli security forces. In revenge, Hanadi, committed another terrorist act. No nation can countenance the ongoing slaughter of its citizens. Peace will never come until Palestinians renounce their death cult, until they understand that pursuing peace is better than terrorism, and the death and economic devastation that comes with the response. Until then there will be more Hanadi Jaradat's; So far, there's no sign of it.

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