The New York Times · 30 March 2002

CP-2002-100

Suicide Bomber, 18, Kills 2 Israelis and Herself

By SERGE SCHMEMANN

Scan 1374 × 992 pixels

Transcribed from the clipping

JERUSALEM, March 29 — An 18-year-old Palestinian suicide bomber blew herself up at a Jerusalem supermarket today, killing herself and two others and wounding at least 30 people.

The bombing was the latest in a string of terror attacks that prompted the Israeli government to proclaim Yasir Arafat an enemy and to send tanks into Ramallah to batter his compound and isolate him in his office. It also reflected the new use of women as suicide bombers, a role until recently limited to men.

The bomber was identified as Ayat al-Akhras, a high school student from the Dheisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem who went to school in the morning before heading for Jerusalem. In a recorded message, she identified herself as a member of the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, a militant group associated with Mr.

Arafat’s Fatah movement, and assailed Arab leaders for “watching while Palestinian women” were fighting to end Israeli occupation. The attack occurred at the entrance to a supermarket in the blue-collar neighborhood of Kiryat Yovel in southeastern Jerusalem, far from the tourist and social centers of the city, and so an unusual target.

The police said the young woman had approached the store but was stopped by a security guard; she then set off her explosives. A man and a woman were killed. The police said the guard’s vigilance prevented a greater toll, as did the fact that part of her charge failed to detonate. Israeli stores are normally full Friday morning in anticipation of the Sabbath.

The bombing came during a series of fierce hailstorms, adding a striking backdrop to the scene of the broken storefront and the armies of investigators and rescue workers. The bombings have come so frequently that they have become almost ritualized. It was the fourth suicide bombing in the two weeks since the arrival of the American mediator, Gen. Anthony C. Zinni.

The largest of the attacks, a bombing Wednesday evening in a seafront hotel in Netanya, in central Israel, left 22 dead. Sivan Peretz, 20, a cashier in the supermarket, said she had been spared because she was working today at the deli section near the back of the store. “There was a tremendous explosion at the entrance to the store,” she recalled.

“I saw black smoke billowing in the air, as food from the shelves flew all over the ground. People began screaming, ‘Let me out, let me out,’ and the emergency doors were opened at the back of the store.”

How this transcription was made

Transcribed from the slide scan by a reader working off magnified crops, not by optical character recognition. The clipping carries no masthead and no folio. The newspaper is printed on it, in the left photograph’s credit line “James Estrin/The New York Times”; the right photograph, a family picture of the bomber, is credited to the Associated Press. The date is derived from the printed dateline, “JERUSALEM, March 29”, from the first caption’s “yesterday”, and from the text’s statement that Israeli stores are normally full on Friday mornings — 29 March 2002 was a Friday — with the year fixed by the Netanya Passover hotel bombing of 27 March 2002. The clipping carries two photographs and both captions are recorded.

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