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Female suicide bombers have become an increasingly prevalent phenomenon in recent years, particularly as popular symbols in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
While some argue that the increasing prevalance of female suicide bombers is a sign of the rising status of women in Arab culture, others argue the reverse: that the desire to become a martyr stems from the marginalization of women in Arab society.
Though Islam forbids women (and men) to commit suicide bombings, terrorist organization (including fundamentalist Muslim ones) have used women to carry out suicide bombings because they draw less suspicion than men and go through less rigorous security checks. For example: while a man can be checked to see if he's carrying an explosive belt by simply lifting his shirt, ordering a woman to do so contradicts Jewish norms of modesty and will cause outrage among conservative Muslims. Israeli security procedures practice is that a suspected woman is to be checked by a female soldier in a screened off area.
Recently, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the leader of Islamist terrorist group Hamas, passed a rule that allows Muslim women to commit suicide and promised Hamas will send many female suicide bombers in order to strike Israelis.
Reaction to this in the Islamic world were ambivalent. While many hailed the female suicide bomber and urged full involvement of all in Jihad, some criticized the cruelty of tearing mothers from their children and sending them to explode themselves. One Lebanese reporter mocked Hamas's "manhood" and suggested that Hamas male terrorists' inability to penetrate Israeli defenses forced Hamas to use women, which is derogatory to Hamas according to traditional Arab values.
See also: Suicide bombing, Hamas
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
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