Suicide Bombs Potent Tools of Terrorists

It is safe to say Abu Khalil knew how he would be remembered here for his twilight attack outside the HaSharon Mall, which killed five Israelis, including two 16-year-old girls who were lifelong best friends. Scores more were injured in Israel's third suicide bombing this year.

The neighborhood is named for two local members of Islamic Jihad, the radical Palestinian group, who died fighting in the West Bank city of Jenin in 2003. The stylized posters of young men, posing with assault rifles and draped with ammunition belts, wallpaper the city. Graffiti urges uprising.

"This has given us a lot of pride, what he has done in Netanya," said Ibrahim Shoukri, 14, who used to follow Abu Khalil to prayer at the mosque. "We hope all of us will be like him."

The cult of glorification -- a mix of nationalist, personal and religious fervor -- that surrounds suicide bombers has long been one of the most difficult challenges facing Israeli security officials. Religious justification taught in the more radical West Bank mosques and intense familial pride -- at least in the days immediately after the attacks -- often outweigh the Israeli deterrent measures designed to make would-be suicide bombers think twice.

Judging by statistics, Israeli officials have made significant progress against suicide attacks since the start of the intifada in September 2000. At the height of the uprising in 2002, 42 suicide bombings killed 228 people. Two years later, the number had dropped to 12 bombings and 55 deaths.

Israeli officials say the construction of a concrete barrier that rises 24 feet high in some places and the intensive military operations in the West Bank have helped keep suicide bombers out of Israel. In addition, the Israeli military destroys the family homes of suicide bombers, a practice human rights groups have condemned as an illegal exercise of collective punishment.

Dore Gold, an adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said the tactic is designed in part to counter the financial incentives offered by enemy governments -- and some nongovernmental groups in Arab countries -- which encourage the bombings. Hussein's Baath Party, for example, sent $15,000 checks to bombers' families, a lot of money in poor West Bank towns.

"If you know your family will be impoverished as a result of your act, then that may affect the calculus," Gold said.

In Atil on Tuesday morning, Abu Khalil left his house at 7 a.m., telling his family he was on his way to check his test scores. He never returned. The family found out about his attack from the television news.

Within hours, Israeli soldiers arrived at the family home. They arrested Khalil's father, who is now in an Israeli military prison outside the northern West Bank. Why and how Abu Khalil carried out the bombing remains a mystery. "God knows how he got through the wall," said an uncle, Burhan Abu Khalil. "The Islamic Jihad organizes those things."

One recent morning, Palestinian television crews filled the family courtyard. As more than a dozen teenage boys looked on, the reporters posed 14-year-old Mahmoud and 4-year-old Othman with their brother's picture, seeking their impressions. They put a black Islamic Jihad cap on Mahmoud's head.

"Put the picture here on your chest," the leader of a crew instructed Othman, the videotape rolling. "What did he tell you, what did he tell you?"

The boys looked nervous, confused. Finally, Mahmoud said, "He told me to pray."

Wilson reported from Atil on the West Bank. Correspondents John Lancaster in New Delhi and Andy Mosher in Baghdad and researcher Robert Thomason in Washington contributed to this report.