A PALESTINIAN mother of two small children who blew herself up at an Israeli checkpoint last week, killing four other people, was chauffeured to her appointment with death by her husband.

Reem al-Riyashi, 22, was carrying several pounds of explosives and nails strapped to a belt when she arrived last Thursday at the Erez crossing, a military checkpoint where Palestinian labourers from Gaza are searched before being allowed into Israel to work.

It emerged this weekend that al-Riyashi — who had a three-year-old son and a one-year-old daughter — had been dropped off at the checkpoint by her husband, Ziyad Awad, 27.

According to the teachings of Hamas, the radical Islamic group of which the couple were both members, al-Riyashi’s mission required her husband’s consent if she was to attain “martyrdom”.

She believed her death would turn her into one of 70 nymphs who would welcome Awad to heaven if he carried out a similar suicide attack.

As Israelis mourned the shedding of yet more innocent blood last week, the families of al- Riyashi and Awad made clear that they did not share the couple’s fervour.

Awad’s parents disowned him for helping his wife on such a mission; al-Riyashi’s refused to comment on their daughter’s act but they expressed outrage with their son-in-law.

According to Palestinian security services, the couple had been meticulously prepared for their mission. The day before, they were seen with Sami Abu Assi, al-Riyashi’s “handler” from Izzedine al-Qassam, Hamas’s military wing.

They were thought to have been going through the plan one final time as they walked and talked in the Zeitouni neighbourhood, a Hamas stronghold of Gaza.

The training proved all too effective when al-Riyashi arrived the next day in Erez and the bombs strapped around her waist set off metal detectors.

According to witnesses, al- Riyashi cried and wailed as she blamed the metal pins in her legs and pleaded with Gal Shapira, 28, the commander of the watch, to let her through.

Convinced by her tale, Shapira ordered one of his female colleagues to take her to a room to be searched.

Seconds later, al-Riyashi pressed her detonator, killing Shapira and two others as well as herself. At least a dozen people, including several Palestinian labourers, were injured.

Shapira’s parents and sister buried him in his home town of Ashkelon on Thursday.

Al-Riyashi’s other victims were Corporal Andrei Kegeles, 19, a computer buff who arrived in Israel six years ago from Belarus with his mother and brother; Staff Sergeant Vladimir Trostiansky, 22, who emigrated from Russia in 1997; and Sergeant Tzur Or, 20, who was laid to rest in the military cemetery of Holon.

Al-Riyashi was the first Palestinian mother to carry out a suicide bombing. Described as a devout Muslim who gave lessons on the Koran, she came from a prominent merchant family and her life appears to have been devoid of the despair and grief said to have driven those who went before her.

“God gave me two children and I loved them so much,” she said in a tape recording made before her death.

Israeli authorities fear her action will encourage other women to imitate her. Training courses for would-be suicide bombers are on the rise throughout the Palestinian territories as young women and even teenage girls volunteer.

Israeli authorities believe last week’s bombing was personally ordered by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the Hamas leader. Yassin had issued a religious edict permitting women to carry out attacks, something his organisation had previously resisted.

“Jihad (holy war) is the duty of men and women,” the cleric told reporters shortly after the the deaths were confirmed.

Yassin, who is confined to a wheelchair, survived an Israeli attempt to kill him in September. Zeev Boim, the deputy defence minister, gave warning that the Israelis would now redouble their efforts to track him down.

“He is marked for death and he had better dig deep underground where he won’t be able to tell the difference between day and night,” Boim said.

In the meantime, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF), is considering how to counter the new threat from women bombers. One possible tactic is to deploy undercover female soldiers disguised as Arabs.

“A new approach is needed,” said one security source. “The ad hoc fatwa of Sheikh Yassin to this wretched mother, permitting her to commit suicide, and further declarations . . . that more such female suicides will follow, will force the IDF to apply its best ingenuity in order to stop this madness.”

It could also mean yet more problems for ordinary Palestinians. Al-Riyashi owed the success of her mission to Shapira, who apparently ignored the rule that any Palestinian setting off the metal detector should be sent back.

A week earlier Shapira, a computer student, had refused entry to a Palestinian man who also triggered the alarm, blaming an implant. Last week he weakened when he saw the tearful, apparently disabled young woman in the line of thousands of Palestinians queuing up at the crossing point. He paid for his compassion with his life.

“Unfortunately, Israel will henceforth have to treat Palestinian women and men equally — they are all suspect and there will be no special consideration for women,” said Itzhak Levanon, a senior Israeli foreign office official.