THE STORY OF HIBA, 19...

[AYOUB]

BY SA'ID GHAZALI, THE INDEPENDENT TUESDAY 27 MAY 2003

 

EVEN HER family is baffled that Hiba Daraghmeh insisted on covering herself from head to toe in dark brown, all-enveloping robe at all times. The white veil she also wore - a badge of Islamic fundamentalism - concealed her head, mouth and nose. Only her almond-shaped eyes were visible to the outside world.

 

The shy 19-year-old student of English literature never spoke to men, and so avoided drinking coffee or tea at the cafeteria at Al Quds Open University in her home town Tubas, in the West Bank. All her of her friends were women. Even her cousin Murad Daraghmeh, 20, also a student at Al Quds,says: '' I never saw her face. I never shook hands with her.' '

 

The first time the world saw her young face unveiled was in a poster. Islamic Jihad released it, after her death eight days ago.

 

Hiba was a suicide bomber. She detonated the explosives around her waist outside Amakim shopping mall in the northern Israeli town of Afula, killing three Israelis and wounding 48.

 

Witnesses describe a horrifying scene of rubble, shattered glass and great pools of blood. As casualties lay on the pavement, emergency workers searched in the ceiling to recover body parts. One of the dead was a female security guard who tried to bar her from entering the building. With the others, she brought to 360 the victims killed by suicide bombers in 32 months of intifada.

 

Monday last week had began like any other in Hiba's household. As usual, she said her prayers at dawn. She insisted on her preparing the family breakfast of cucumber and salad, bread, olive oil and thyme, and tea. Her mother, Fatima, 45, recalls: ''We ate. She washed the dishes''.

 

Then Hiba went outside to the garden where her family had almond and olive trees, pomegranates and roses. Her mother says ''She watered the plants and I noticed her smelling the roses. She was laughing, and I asked her why. She told me, ' I feel that I am a new person. You will be very proud of me.' Then she left and never returned'' .

 

Before leaving town, Hiba visited her sisters, Jihan and Mariam. Se returned a notebook to a classmate. She went to say goodbye to her grandmother.

 

The last time anyone in Taubas saw her, she was -as always - wearing her Islamic clothes. Four hours later when she got to Afula, she was dressed in jeans. She awas also wering a belt of explosives. To the followers of Islamic Jihad, which recruited her, to many Palestinians and millions of Arabs and Muslims, Hiba is the fifth heroine of the intifada. To the Israelis and International community she is a terrorist, a callous killer.

 

Told of the atrocity, President George Bush vowed that it would never deflect Washington from the road-map to peace. He dismissed suicide bombers as ''sad and pathetic''.

 

Hiba's relatives, interviewed as the Israeli Cabinet was voting narrowly in favour of the Middle East road-map, say they are proud of her. They insisted they knew nothing in her plans. Only her grandmother breaks ranks to says she regretted her actions and blames those who recruited her. She says '' She was too young''.

 

They were staying with relations now, for the family house, large and comfortable, ws dynamited by the Israelis the after the bombing. Only the garden where Hiba smelt the roses on the morning of her mission remains.

 

On the rubble of their home, the family has plastered one of Islamic Jihad's posters of her. There are two more on a wall in Tubas.

 

Hiba was much more devout than her family. Her mother says ''At 15, she wore the jelbab. At 16, she wore the veil.''

 

The jelbab is the flowing costume that envelopes the entire body. The white veil that cover all but the eyes is shunned by most Palestinian women including Hiba's mother, sisters and female relatives.

 

''Throw it away. This veil.'' , her grandmother remembers telling her. '' You are too young and it is too hot''. Her eldest sister recalls : ''Anytime the radio or tv played a love song, she turned it off.''

 

She was a model student gaining 100 per cent in her most recent exams in Palestinian studied. In English literature she scored 89 per cent.

 

''She saw herself as a special person.'' Jihan said. She demostrated that in her religious obsession. ''She used to pray for two hours, standing, stooping and kneeling in devotion,'' Jihan added. ''She spent most of her free time reading the Koran. When she was repeating its verses she said she felt unique. I thought she meant unique in her studies and religious feelings. I did not realize she meant she wanted to be unique in her death.''

 

Hiba was visibly affected by the trial of her 23-year-old brother, Bakr. He had been shot in Nablus in a demonstration to commemorate the 1948 Palestinian nakba, or the disaster anniversary when Israel was established. He was later arrested on charges of weapons possessions and carrying attack for Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. The charges sheet included possession of an explosive belt. The Israeli prosecutor requested 99-year prison term for him.

 

On the day her brother was arrested in June 2002, the army stormed the family house. One of the soldiers tore Hiba's text books and a copy of the Koran, her mother says.

 

A week later, there was a curfew on Tubas. As she was walking to school, an army jeep stopped her and soldiers forced her veil off. Her grandmother explains: ''She was very angry. She was full of hatred against the Jews. I believe this is the motivation for what she has done''

 

Aside from Hiba's religious zeal, the political environment she grew up in radicalises many Palestinians to the point where they make no distinction between soldiers and shoppers in a mall.

 

A psychiatrist, Ahmed Abu Tawahina, explain: ''The closures and daily incursions by the Israeli army, the martyrs' funerals, the eulogies recited by militants, the graffiti revering suicide bombers as istishadyeen - the martyr-attackers - are part of the political environment that nourishes suicide bombings.''

 

Even yesterday the Israelis troops shot dead 11-year-old boy during a confrontation with stone throwing youths in the west bank, according to Palestinian witnesses and medics.

 

The involvement of women in suicide bombings is a new and unsettling phenomenon for many Palestinians. Hammas, responsible for most suicide bombings, and for the four previous suicide bombings by women, opposes it because the organisation has enough male volunteers.

 

Islam does not prohibit the participation of women in the jihad. But Islamic Jihad would not encourage it, says members, unless female suicide bombers insisted on doing it.

 

Immediately after a suicide bomber is named, the Israeli army demolishes the suicide bomber's family house and arrests members of his or her family.

 

The army prevents them from rebuilding their home on the same spot.

 

Murad Daraghmeh call her a heroine. As he surveys the ruins of the family home, he says: ''I am a coward. She is courageous. I will never be an Istishahdi. I have brothers and sisters. The army would arrest them. And the army would destroy my family house.''

[Thinkerman]

Mashallah what a story. My allah Grant Hiba the highest level of Janaah for her Martadom for she has become a Mujahiid.