Two Palestinian suicide bombers reached Israel through Egypt, a militant leader says

The two friends left their Gaza homes last week, telling their families they were traveling to Egypt across Gaza's breached border.

On Monday, Luay Laghwani, 22, and Moussa Arafat, 24, surfaced in a shopping center in the working class town of Dimona in southern Israel. One blew himself up, killing an Israeli woman, and the other was shot dead by police before he could detonate the explosives strapped to his body.

The suicide attack, the first in Israel in a year, could complicate Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.

Laghwani was a member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, a violent offshoot of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement. Abbas, who has been meeting regularly with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as part of peace talks, quickly condemned the attack.

In the alley outside Laghwani's home in Gaza City, neighbors and a few journalists crowded around the bomber's father, who held up a picture of his son and praised him as a hero who had made the family proud.

In stark contrast, Laghwani's mother, Ibtissam, remained inside the home, sitting on a mattress on the floor and sobbing uncontrollably.

She said she had learned of her son's violent death from neighbors less than two hours earlier. She cowered when her husband and other men in the family reprimanded her for grieving and demanded that she show pride in being the mother of a "martyr."

Mrs. Laghwani said her son had made three trips to Egypt since Jan. 23, the day Hamas militants toppled the border wall with Egypt. Each time, her son had returned with goods for the house, she said.

She said she last saw her son, the oldest of 10 children, on Wednesday. He told her he was heading to Egypt again.

As she spoke, bursts of gunfire went off outside. About a dozen Al Aqsa gunmen had arrived to pay their respects. The leader of the small group, who would only give his nom de guerre, Abu Ahmed, said Laghwani had been friends with the second bomber, Arafat.

Abu Ahmed denied the pair had reached Israel via Egypt, apparently to deflect possible Egyptian anger over being dragged into the militants' conflict with Israel. However, he was quickly contradicted by another leading Al Aqsa member, Abu Fouad, who said in a telephone interview that the two bombers had sneaked through Israel's porous border with Egypt. Abu Fouad said the attack had been planned for a month.

Abu Ahmed said Laghwani joined Al Aqsa three years ago. Asked for a motive, he said Laghwani had been driven by a desire to avenge Israel's blockade of Gaza.

At Arafat's family home, in the southern Gaza town of Abassan, boys distributed trays of finger-shaped baklava sweets, apparently to demonstrate the family's pride in his actions. Arafat was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a radical PLO faction. The family is not related to the late Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat.

Arafat's mother, Sarah, said she was upset over her son's death, but then quickly added that her family had "sacrificed for the homeland."

The two bombers left separate farewell messages with rambling appeals for Palestinian unity.

Laghwani read two pages of notes, an Al Aqsa logo serving as a backdrop. "I hope, brothers, that my blood will be used to unite you," he said.

____

AP reporter Diaa Hadid contributed to this report from Gaza City.