January 2004 Erez Crossing Suicide Bombing

The Erez Crossing, situated on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip, functioned in early 2004 as both a security checkpoint and a major passage for Palestinian workers employed in the adjacent Erez industrial park. The industrial park employed approximately 4,900 Gazan workers, and their wages supported an estimated 30,000 immediate family members.[1] The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center's report presented the industrial park and crossing as important to Gaza's civilian economy and as a locus of Israeli-Palestinian economic cooperation.[1]

The January 14 bombing was one of several attacks at the Erez Crossing during 2004. A separate incident on March 6 involved rifle fire and suicide car bombs, including jeeps camouflaged as Israel Defense Forces vehicles; two Palestinian policemen and four attackers were killed, and no IDF casualties were reported. Another suicide bombing struck the crossing on April 17, killing Border Policeman Sgt. Kfir Ohayon and wounding three others.[2] Of these three attacks, the January 14 bombing caused the highest Israeli death toll, with four Israelis killed.[2]

At approximately 9:35 a.m. on January 14, 2004, Reem Saleh al-Riyashi approached the Magen 12 security terminal at the Erez Crossing while it was crowded with workers.[3] She appeared to limp, and the metal detector sounded as she passed through it. Al-Riyashi told security personnel that she had a metal plate in her leg that might trigger the detector, repeatedly said "palatin," and pointed to her right leg.[3] Following the procedure used for people reporting medical conditions, staff summoned a female screener to examine her.[3]

Once permitted to proceed into the screening area, al-Riyashi waited for the female screener. According to the IDF inquiry described in contemporaneous reporting, she took advantage of a moment of inattention, moved a few steps deeper into the screening area, and detonated the explosive belt she was carrying.[3] The blast caused extensive destruction inside the terminal. The injured were evacuated to Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon; two were described as moderately injured and the remainder as lightly injured, with shrapnel and blast injuries predominating. A Palestinian woman undergoing screening was also among the wounded.[3]

The four Israelis killed were Corporal Andrei Kegeles, 19, of Nahariya; Staff Sergeant Tzur Or, 20, of Rishon Lezion; security guard Gal Shapira, 29, of Ashkelon; and Border Policeman Staff Sergeant Vladimir Trostinsky, 22, of Rehovot.[4] Approximately ten people were wounded.[2][3] The crossing was closed immediately after the attack, and Palestinian workers at the site were sent back into Gaza.[3]

Reem Saleh al-Riyashi was a resident of the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City and a mother of two young children.[3] She was described as a 23-year-old Hamas recruit whose husband was also a Hamas operative.[5] She was the first woman Hamas used to carry out a suicide bombing and was described as the first Palestinian mother to perpetrate such an attack.[6][5]

Hamas leadership publicly described the use of a woman as a new development. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Hamas's spiritual leader, stated: "For the first time, Hamas used a female fighter and not a male fighter. It is a new development in resistance against the enemy."[6] Yassin also said that al-Riyashi belonged to Hamas amid a dispute with Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades over her organizational affiliation.[3]

In 2009, al-Riyashi's two children were invited onto a Hamas children's television program that showed a dramatized reenactment of their mother's attack at the Erez Crossing.[7]

Hamas's Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades and Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades issued a joint claim of responsibility for the bombing.[2][3] A senior al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades figure described it as a joint operation and said it was retaliation for an Israeli attempt to assassinate Zakaria Zubeidi and for Israeli military actions in Palestinian areas.[3] The two organizations nevertheless disputed al-Riyashi's affiliation, with each claiming she had acted on its behalf.[3]

A report archived on the Government of Israel website identified the operation as a collaboration between Hamas and Fatah's Tanzim.[5] The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center characterized the bombing as an effort by Palestinian organizations to disrupt Israeli-Palestinian economic cooperation at Erez; this was the center's analysis rather than an independently established motive.[1]

The explosion severely damaged the Magen 12 terminal, requiring a new facility and temporary arrangements for workers entering the area.[1] Immediately after the bombing, the crossing was closed and Palestinian workers present at the site were sent back into Gaza.[3]

The wider sequence of attacks at Erez during 2004 prompted political and international responses. After the separate April 17 suicide bombing, a White House statement said Hamas had claimed responsibility, urged Israel and other parties to exercise restraint, and referred to the possibility that an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza could create an opportunity for progress toward peace.[8] After the failed March 6 attack, Israeli Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon said he could not rule out the possibility that public discussion of disengagement from Gaza was contributing to heightened terrorism, describing such discussion as a possible "tailwind" for further attacks.[9]

The January 14 bombing marked Hamas's first use of a female suicide bomber.[6] The Combating Terrorism Center later observed that women could attract less suspicion and be subjected to more relaxed security checks than men.[6] At Erez, al-Riyashi exploited the procedure for a secondary examination by a female screener after claiming that a metal implant in her leg had triggered the detector.[3]

Several details of the attack are recorded inconsistently. Ynet's contemporaneous report, first published on January 14, gives January 14 as the date, while a later Ynet attack chronology lists January 13 and another Ynet article gives January 15.[3][10] The January 14 date is also used by the Jewish Virtual Library chronology.[2] The number of wounded varies as well: the contemporaneous Ynet report and the Jewish Virtual Library cite approximately ten, while the later Ynet attack list gives five.[2][10]

Sources give three different ages for al-Riyashi. The report archived on the Government of Israel website gives 23, while a later Ynetnews report gives 22.[5][11] The contemporaneous Ynet report gives 21.[3] Fatality classifications also vary: one chronology summarizes the dead as three soldiers and one civilian, while contemporaneous reporting distinguishes two IDF soldiers, a Border Police officer, and a civilian security guard.[2][3] The victims' names and the total of four Israeli fatalities remain consistent.[4]