AQQABA - A mixture of despair and determination drove Izz el-Din al-Masri to walk up to the counter of a Jerusalem pizza restaurant and blow himself up with a nail-packed bomb, according to his family.
Family members said the 23-year-old Palestinian, from a village near the West Bank city of Jenin, had frequently spoken of becoming a suicide bomber.
On Thursday he carried out that plan, leaving his father's Middle Eastern restaurant early in the day to head to the Israeli eatery packed with families sitting down to lunch. He killed 15 people, several of them children.
The bombing was condemned in Israel and abroad as inhuman, but won praise among Palestinians. So keen were the Palestinians to claim credit that two different groups originally sought the honour. But the Islamic Jihad group later said it had mistakenly identified one of its members as the suicide bomber.
The man, identified as Hussein Abu Amsha, might carry out an attack in the future, it said.
"Our fighter, Hussein Abu Amsha, was en route to carry out a martyrdom operation, and when the explosion [in Jerusalem] happened our brothers thought it was him," Islamic Jihad general secretary Ramadan Shallah said from Damascus.
The Hamas group then identified the bomber as one of their supporters and said the bombing was intended to avenge an Israeli missile attack that killed eight people, including two Hamas leaders accused of plotting bombings, in the West Bank city of Nablus last week.
Shallah acknowledged the Hamas claim. "What happened with the double claim showed that Palestinians are competing to avenge the killing by Israel," he said.
"This is a unique operation for its quality and success," the bomber's brother, Eyad, said. "He always spoke of martyrdom. Palestinians everywhere can now hold up their heads."
Their father, Shuheil, said he was filled with pride and sadness over his son's act.
"When I heard about the operation in Jerusalem, I did not doubt that my son did this," he said. "I will weep for him all of my life.
"The Palestinians have no alternative to these [bombing] operations," Shuheil said. "We have no alternative way to reply to the Israeli aggression against our people.
He added: "I hope that many others follow him."
- REUTERS
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Bomber felt despair and desperation
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