Suicide attackers have targeted crowded areas. The attacks, and the death, injury and destruction they cause, have become one of the hallmarks of the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Across the world they are widely condemned as brutal acts of terrorism - though the attacks are pointedly not condemned by some Arab or Islamic governments or indeed Western Left Wing political organisations.

In one of the bloodiest attacks of recent years, in March 2002, 28 Israelis were killed and more than 100 injured as they sat in a hotel dining room in Netanya to celebrate the Jewish Passover. The attacker was a 25-year-old man from Tulkarm in the West Bank.

Palestinian officials rarely condemn suicide attacks. They are also often accused by Israel of not doing enough to stop the attackers and of celebrating the "martyrdom" of the attackers. Israel has proven the Palestinian Authority fund suicide attacks and rewarding the families of attackers. Suicide attacks routinely draw a severe military response from the Israeli army ranging from direct attacks against militants or the planners of attacks to 24-hour curfews in urban areas.

Israel's current insistence that there can be no political progress before a cessation of suicide attacks means that the militant groups that lead the attacks in effect have a veto on the peace process.

'Bringing the war to Israel'

For the attackers and the organisations that send them on their missions, the horror, death and destruction is precisely the point.


SUICIDE BOMBING FACTS
First suicide attack: Hamas kills eight people in Afula in April 1994
120 Israelis died in attacks between 1994 and September 2000
462 Israelis killed and 3,000 injured in attacks since September 2000 (updated March 2004)
Source: Human Rights Watch and news reports

My son the suicide bomber
When will it end?
Story of a suicide bombing
Yahya Ayyash, a leading Hamas bomb maker who was killed by Israel in 1996, was quoted as saying that the use of "human bombs" was a way to "make the the situation that much more expensive in human lives, that much more unbearable".

However polls taken in the West Bank and Gaza have in recent years suggested that only about 30% of Palestinians support suicide attacks.

History of attacks

The first Palestinian suicide attack in Israel killed eight people in April 1994 in the centre of Afula. Between 1994 and September 2000, the beginning of the current intifada, some 120 Israelis were killed in suicide attacks. A series of attacks in 1996 and 1997 cemented the tactic of targeting crowded buses or cafes with nail bombs. Suicide attacks have greatly increased during the current intifada. Since September 2000, about 436 Israelis have died as a result of these attacks. The number of injured is close to 3,000.

Militant groups

The main organisations behind the suicide attacks are Hamas (an acronym in Arabic of The Islamic Resistance Movement), Islamic Jihad, the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Hamas is ideologically committed to an Islamic state in Israel and the Palestinian territories - though the organisation does have a pragmatic thread that allows it to negotiate with the Palestinian Authority and to call ceasefires when it believes there are opportunities for political progress.


MILITANT GROUP PROFILES

Hamas
Islamic Jihad
Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade
Much of the popular support for Hamas among Palestinians comes from the social services that the organisation provides - schools, clinics and food distribution centres.

Attempts by the Palestinian Authority to crack down on Hamas have been made much more difficult because of the organisation's popularity.

Islamic Jihad, which shares the aims and methods of Hamas, has nothing like its popular backing. It does not run any social services.

This is a reflection of Jihad's ideological stance which holds that the Arab-Israeli conflict will only be resolved through armed confrontation.

The al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, who have been behind a number of suicide attacks, are closely linked to Yasser Arafat's Fatah political faction.

The brigades are neither officially recognised nor openly backed by Mr Arafat and Fatah, though members tend also to belong to Fatah.

Marwan Barghouti, a leader in the West Bank often mentioned as a successor to Yasser Arafat, is the leader of the brigades. He has been in Israeli custody since April 2002.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a group with an Arab nationalist and Marxist-Leninist ideology, has also carried out suicide attacks inside Israel and against Jewish settlements. The group is believed to be behind the October 2001 killing of Israeli cabinet minister Rehavam Zeevi.

The attackers

Suicide bombers are typically unmarried men in their 20s - though there have been a number of attacks by women.

Hamas enjoys limited support for its suicide attacks and its social services
The attackers, who are often recorded on video declaring their intentions to murder Israelis, most often cast their attacks as acts of revenge and seem to believe that they will go straight to paradise.

Part of the pact between a bomber and the group that sends him is that the attacker's death will be celebrated and his family provided for.

Suicide attacks are often launched at short notice. The group behind the attack will usually select a target, arrange for the transport of the bomber into Israel and supply the explosive device. Explosives are usually wrapped closely around the attacker or sewn into clothing.

Countering the bombers

In response to the suicide attacks, Israel has adopted a range of security measures One tactic against attacks has been the effective re-occupation of the West Bank. During the most intensive wave of suicide attacks in the current intifada, in March 2002, Israel seemed overwhelmed - there were 16 attacks in this month alone. The Israeli army was sent into the West Bank to re-occupy all the Palestinian cities, in the biggest Israeli military deployment since the 1967 War. Troops remained for nearly two months. Their withdrawal was followed by another wave of suicide attacks. In June, the troops were sent in to the West Bank again and have remained there since then on the edges or inside most Palestinian towns and cities.