15 Facts About Reem Riyashi

Reem Saleh Riyashi was a Palestinian suicide bomber from Gaza City who killed herself and four Israelis at the Erez crossing on 14 January 2004.

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.

Reem Riyashi was the eighth Palestinian female suicide bomber, but only the second to have left behind children.

Reem Riyashi was the first female suicide bomber sent by Hamas whose spiritual leader at the time, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin initially objected to the involvement of women in such actions, altering this position shortly before his assassination by Israel in March 2004.

The Israeli army reported that when she reached the metal detector at the terminal, Reem Riyashi pretended to be disabled and claimed to have metal plates in her leg which would sound the alarm.

Reem Riyashi's relatives had no explanation for why a mother with children so young would choose to become a suicide bomber.

Hamas received widespread criticism from among Palestinians, and even among some supporters, for deploying a young mother as a suicide bomber and for publishing photographs of Reem Riyashi posing with her children and weapons.

In one photograph, Reem Riyashi's son is clutching what appears to be a mortar shell and is wearing a Hamas headband while another picture shows Reem Riyashi gazing at her children.

Reem Riyashi succeeded in deceiving the occupation soldiers who gathered around her, claiming that it was the platinum bolts in her leg that set off the alarm of the detectors.

Reem Riyashi looked at her place in paradise and at the long columns of children martyrs and their parents and decided not to falter, because after all she would be a source of pride for her own children.

Reem Riyashi offered hope in a sea of complacency, indecisiveness, and fear.

Reem Riyashi's timing was precise: [This] is a response to the Israeli boast that the Palestinian is on the verge of collapse and submission under the weight of the war of annihilation.

Reem Riyashi was the wife of a local Hamas commander and, according to Israeli security sources, she was involved in an extramarital affair with another Hamas commander from Gaza.

Reem Riyashi's suicide was planned by the two and it meant to cleanse her name and honor.

Reem Riyashi's children appeared on a 2009 episode of Palestinian children's TV show Tomorrow's Pioneers.