Kamisa, a guard at the Sharon Center in the Israeli working-class town of Netanya, was on duty this morning when a blast ripped through the entrance of the crowded mall, killing six-including the bomber-and injuring more than 100 others.
And in those moments before the explosion, when the events shifted to slow motion, Kamisa says he stared into the eyes of the bomber and saw the void-a robotic gaze, a look that signaled the man was already in the next world.
His account of the events sheds some light on the psychology of suicide bombers, who have killed scores of Israelis since 1994.
Sources from the militant Palestinian organization Hamas say suicide bombers undergo a process of indoctrination that lasts for months. The bombers believe they are sent on their missions by God, and by the time they’re ready to be strapped with explosives, say the sources, they have reached a hypnotic state. Their rationale: that by blowing themselves up in a crowd of Israelis, they are forging their own gateway to heaven.
Kamisa, who was doing his usual job of checking shoppers for weapons with a handheld metal detector at the northern entrance of the mall, was two hours into his shift when he noticed Mahmoud Ahmed Marmash. It was 11 am, and the Palestinian, sharply dressed in a blue blazer, was waiting in the throng lined up to enter the mall. “I knew right away that something about him was off,” says Kamisa. “The jacket was too big, and the guy just looked out of place.”
The 23-year-old guard, who only a month earlier had completed his military service as a naval commando, radioed the information to another guard and then kept his eye on Marmash, who was later identified by senior Palestinian security officials as the bomber.
Others at the entrance to the mall watched Marmash, too. David Aboudi, who came with his daughter to shop for a car, said he saw a belt under Marmash’s jacket. “I’m not a military man, but I just knew he was a terrorist,” he says. Marcos Jones, who wanted to buy a gift for his girlfriend, remembers noticing that Marmash looked tidy and clean-shaven. Descriptions of the bomber vary slightly, but a thread runs through the accounts of each of the witnesses: Marmash did not sweat, and he maintained almost perfect composure.
When Marmash noticed he was being watched, he walked away. He approached another door, was stymied and finally returned to the northern entrance. Kamisa picked him out again in a group of about 15 shoppers. “I spotted him in line…. I locked eyes with the guy for what seemed like a very long time. They were totally frozen. He showed no emotion.” In those moments, Marmash moved slowly, opening a front button, slipping his hand into his jacket, pressing a button and blowing himself up. “He evaporated before my eyes, he just turned to dust.”
Immediately surrounding Marmash, the force of the blast crushed bones and severed limbs. A baby resting in a stroller behind the bomber suffered critical wounds but survived the blast. Kamisa, who remembers falling back from the force of the explosion, sustained only light injuries. “God helped me,” he says from his hospital bed. Presumably it wasn’t the same God that sent Marmash.
