Israeli authorities have arrested a Palestinian woman who was on her way to commit a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv – while she was pregnant with her ninth child, officials revealed yesterday.
Fatma Yunis Hassan Zak 39, was in her ninth month of pregnancy when she and her niece, Ruda Habib, 30, who has four young children of her own, said they planned to travel through Israel on a medical pretext and detonate their explosive belts in a double bombing.
Reports in the Israeli media indicated their targets were either a restaurant or event hall in Tel Aviv and Netanya or just in Tel Aviv.
Zak, who lives in the Gaza Strip, ran the “women’s labor office” of the terrorist Islamic Jihad group for the past four years, according to Israel’s Shin Bet security service.
Part of her job was to put women who wanted to become suicide bombers in contact with the group’s bombmakers, it said.
Three months ago, Habib, who also lives in Gaza, told her she wanted to blow herself up in a mass murder. Zak decided to join her, according to her confession.
The two women obtained permission from Israeli authorities to pass through the Erez crossing on the Israel-Gaza border, claiming Habib needed medical treatment in Ramallah in the West Bank. Zak said she needed to accompany her niece.
They were given weapons training from Islamic Jihad and instructions on how to avoid suspicion while passing through Israel.
Shortly before the plot was to be carried out, Islamic Jihad released a video clip in which a high-ranking member claimed the group had prepared “dozens” of female bombers who were ready to attack Israel.
On May 20, the same day the video surfaced, Zak and Habib were arrested at the Erez crossing, apparently based on a tip.
With Post Wire Services