The process of recruiting a suicide bomber is done in the strictest confidence, according to a Newsweek Special Report: "Suicide Mission." "You send out signals at school or mosque, and those in charge of suicide attacks gather information about the candidates," says a teacher in a refugee camp, explaining that stating admiration for martyrs or a willingness to die for the cause is often enough to alert the operatives. "At that very moment everything becomes secret. The would-be martyr might then tell her friends, 'I was just kidding when I made those statements."

Jerusalem Bureau Chief Joshua Hammer profiles the 18-year old Palestinian girl who blew herself up at a Jerusalem supermarket, and the 17-year old Israeli girl who died in the blast, in the April 15 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, April 8). Experts say that Ayat al-Akhras's self discipline combined with the fierce Palestinian nationalism that she embraced as a religion made her a natural candidate for the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Thus she probably needed little psychological or tactical preparation for her task, which helps to explain why those closest to her -- parents, teachers, siblings and friends -- all say that she didn't vary her daily routine in the weeks leading up to her death.

The anger that compelled Ayat toward her suicidal act had been building for years. She was raised on stories of Israeli aggression and Palestinian flight. Gradually, the uprising that began in September 2000 started to touch her life directly: her brother was shot and wounded by Israeli troops. Three cousins, all members of Hamas, were killed in the Gaza Strip. And a close family friend and a member of Fatah, was shot dead while planting a roadside bomb near a Jewish settlement. Her anger peaked when the Israeli Defense Force rolled into the Dehaishe camp. On the evening of March 8, a neighbor was playing with his daughter in his home when he was shot through the window by Israeli troops. Ayat's brother and a cousin tried to carry the dying man to a hospital but he died in their arms. "When Ayat saw me and our cousin carrying Isa past the doorway, she screamed out in pain and I told her to get back inside," her brother says, adding that their neighbor's death had a powerful impact on her. Shortly after, friends believe, she either sought out or was approached by the Al Aqsa Brigade's suicide unit.

As the appointed hour grew close, however, she made little attempts to conceal her hatred of Israel, and her disgust with what she viewed as the passivity of the Arab world. Watching the Arab summit on TV with her parents, she seethed at what she deemed the failure of the Arab states to take a strong stand against Israel. Days before her operation, she met in a secret location with at least one Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade accomplice, who videotaped her final message to the world and dropped it off with a local TV station in Bethlehem after her attack. With her head wrapped in the black-and-white checked kaffiyeh of the Fatah movement, she reads from a prepared statement: I say to the Arab leaders, 'Stop sleeping. Stop failing to fulfill your duty. Shame on the Arab armies who are sitting and watching the girls of Palestine fighting while they are asleep."

On that Friday morning, Ayat followed a route along footpaths and through fields, skirting Israeli military checkpoints and crossing unnoticed into Jerusalem. Palestinian sources believe that an accomplice was waiting for her in a car on the other side of the Green Line. There she received her belt of explosives, and was driven to a drop-off point near the Supersol market in Kiryat Hayovel's commercial center. She was so composed before her act that she shooed away two Palestinian women selling herbs and scallions in front of the supermarket. Then she walked purposefully toward the door, where a security guard blocked her path. At that moment, Rachel Levy brushed by Ayat. The Palestinian girl pressed the detonator, blowing herself in one direction and Rachel in the other. Their bodies, both torn to pieces, were found on the opposite ends of the market.

Mohammed al-Akhras, Ayat's father, received confirmation that his daughter was the suicide bomber when militiamen from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades stood outside his house and fired their guns into the air in salute. Though convention calls for the father of a martyr to express pride in the act, Akhras seemed overwhelmed by grief. "Words cannot express the pain I feel," he mumbled. He said that he had received no offers of financial support from either the Palestinian Authority or the Iraqi government, which has paid as much as $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers. He said he wasn't sure whether he would accept such an offer, thought he conceded that he might have no other choice since as the father of a suicide bomber he was all but certain he would be fired by his Israeli employers. Ayat's fiance seemed just as uncomprehending. "If she had just told me what she was planning, I would have stopped her," he said. "May God forgive her for what she has done." Other members of her family insisted that they regarded suicide bombings as morally wrong, but explained that Israeli brutality had left Palestinians' no other choice. "Sharon has killed hope in our life," said Ayat's cousin, Mutlak Qassas. "Today Ayat went to send him a message with her blood and her body."

Rachel's mother, Abigail, says she doesn't want revenge, "but I want the government to make it clear that if another family sends their child to be killed, they will suffer. This is the only way for them to understand -- when they feel what we feel."