Ayat al-Akhras

Ayat al-Akhras was the third and youngest Palestinian female suicide bomber who, at age 18, killed herself and two Israeli civilians on March 29, 2002 by detonating explosives belted to her body. The killings gained widespread international attention due to Ayat's age and gender and the fact that one of the victims was also a teenage girl. The killings led U.S. President George W. Bush to observe: “When an 18-year-old Palestinian girl is induced to blow herself up and in the process kills a 17-year-old Israeli girl, the future itself is dying; the future of the Palestinian people and the future of the Israeli people.”