Reem Riyashi

Author: alice Date: 14 November, Category: Sad, Visits 4763

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[Reem Riyashi (1982 – 14 January 2004) was a Palestinian mother of two from Gaza City who killed herself and four Israelis at the Erez crossing on January 14, 2004 in a suicide bombing attack. Hamas and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade claimed that the attack by Riyashi was a joint operation mounted as a response to weeks of Israeli incursions into West Bank cities that had left about 25 Palestinians dead.

Unlike most bombers, Riyashi came from a wealthy family. She was the eighth Palestinian female suicide bomber, but only the second to have left behind children. Riyashi was the first female suicide bomber sent by Hamas whose spiritual leader at the time, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin had initially objected to the involvement of women in such actions, altering this position shortly before his assassination by Israel in March 2004.

Wearing combat fatigues and holding an automatic rifle with a rocket-propelled grenade in the foreground, Riyashi said that since age 13 she had dreamed of turning [my body into deadly shrapnel against the Zionists].

She continued: [I always wanted to be the first woman to carry out a martyrdom operation, where parts of my body can fly all over ... God has given me two children. I love them [with] a kind of love that only God knows, but my love to meet God is stronger still].

Riyashi detonated a 2 kg bomb inside a building where the thousands of Palestinians who cross each day from Gaza to work in a neighbouring industrial zone are processed.

The Israeli army reported that when she reached the metal detector at the terminal, Riyashi pretended to be crippled and claimed to have metal plates in her leg which would sound the alarm. She asked to have a body search instead. After being taken to an area where a group of soldiers and policemen were checking bags, she was told to wait for a woman to come and search her in a cubicle. It was then that she detonated the explosive device.

Two Israeli soldiers, a policeman and a civilian security worker were killed. Seven other Israelis and four Palestinians were injured]. – Wikipedia

Photos: Reem Saleh Al-Riyashi, the first woman suicide bomber from Hamas, hugs her children Duha and Mohammad, in the Gaza Strip. She was married and the mother of two young children. (Photo by Getty Images)