A PALESTINIAN mother of two faked a disability yesterday to trick her way past Israeli guards before detonating a vest packed with explosives, killing four security staff and wounding seven people at a checkpoint.

The suicide bomber was named as Reem al-Rayashee, 22, the mother of a girl aged 18 months and a boy, 3.

Hamas, the militant Islamic group, said that it was the first time that it had deployed a woman in such an attack and marked a new tactic in its battle against Israel.

In a videotape explaining her actions, the bomber was seen seated between two Hamas flags, clutching an assault rifle. “It was always my wish to turn my body into deadly shrapnel against the Zionists and knock on the doors of Heaven with the skulls of Zionists,” she said. “I always wanted to be the first (Hamas) woman to carry out a martyrdom operation where parts of my body can fly all over.”

She said, smiling at times, that she had the dreams since she was 13. “God gave me two children and I loved them so much. Only God knew how much I loved them.” She asked that her children should study in religious schools.

In Gaza City, mourners gathered in pouring rain at a mosque to remember Mrs al-Rayashee, the wife of a lifeguard who patrolled Gaza’s beaches a short distance from the home of her wealthy extended family.

One family member at her home condemned the attack, but shed no light on her motive. Thousands of Palestinian workers who were using the Erez crossing, where the blast occurred, were held there for hours in the rain before being taken back to Gaza. As many as 20,000 are likely to lose their livelihood for days or weeks if, as expected, the crossing remains shut.

Mrs al-Rayashee had passed along hundreds of metres of heavily guarded razor wire to enter the security cabin at about 9.30am, shortly after the main wave of workers had crossed into Israel or an adjacent industrial zone.

She said that she wanted to apply for a new security pass, either to enter Israel for work or medical treatment. She passed through a metal detector and, when it sounded an alert, told soldiers that she had metal pins in her legs.

Israeli soldiers in the cabin, equipped with airport-style baggage screening equipment, told her to stop while they summoned a female soldier to conduct a search in the privacy of a room at the rear. As they waited, the woman detonated a larger device than usual, the Israeli Army said.

“She was faking a medical condition,” Brigadier-General Gadi Shamni, commander of the Israeli Army’s Gaza division, said. “The soldiers were waiting to take care of her. That’s a cruel and cynical exploitation of our humanitarian treatment of her.”

Two soldiers, a policeman and a civilian security guard died. Shrapnel peppered the walls and left a scene of charred devastation inside the cabin. Its corrugated aluminium roof was peeled back. Seven people were injured, four of them Palestinians waiting to be screened.

Yossi Vaknim, an Israeli from the nearby Nisanit settlement, was one of the first at the scene. “When I got there it was almost impossible to look at,” he said. “It was awful.” He blamed Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister, for talking of withdrawing from Israeli settlements to forge peace.

Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas, said that the death of Mrs al-Rayashee represented a new departure for the organisation. Holy war was “an obligation of all Muslims, men and women”, he said. “This is an indication that resistance will continue.” It was the first Hamas suicide bomb in many months.

A local Hamas activist gave warning of an upsurge in violence, which he said was in response to continuing Israeli attacks.

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