From a Suicide Bomber's Father, No Praise, Just Grief:
"The day after 16-year-old Sabih Abu Saud blew himself up in a West Bank village, with Israeli troops in pursuit, his father Kamal Abu Saud did something extremely unusual — he declined to eulogize his son as a hero.

In the tortured calculus of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the parents of suicide bombers have rarely strayed from a consistent message: Our sons and daughters are heroes, they said, and we are proud of what they did.

In keeping with that tradition, Sabih was widely hailed as a martyr, and posters of the youth, with a wisp of a mustache, were plastered along city streets and at the cemetery. But Mr. Saud, a 53-year-old construction worker, said he saw only the pointless loss of his son's life."

"As a father, I am angry about what happened," Mr. Saud said Tuesday in an interview from the family's home, set on a ridge with a panoramic view of Nablus. Had he known his son's intentions, "I would have prevented him, if I could."

Sabih had just reached his 16th birthday on Oct. 23, and may have been the youngest of the more than 100 Palestinian suicide bombers to date. Nevertheless, Mr. Saud's sentiments did not appear to be shared even by his wife, let alone by the young men in the streets of Nablus.

As a crowd gathered for the noisy funeral procession, Mr. Saud's wife, Nawal, took a megaphone and issued a challenge to Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon.

"If Sharon wants peace, we are ready to make it," she shouted. "But if he wants war, I'll be the first one to fight."

Mr. Saud did not blame the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, the group that armed his son. He suggested instead that the ultimate responsibility was Sabih's.

"The person who gave him the bomb belt didn't force him to take it," said Mr. Saud, who described his son as a "good and quiet boy."

On Sunday, Sabih's mother noticed that a picture of the boy's uncle was missing. The uncle, Nasser Abu Saud, a member of the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, was killed in April of last year during a major Israeli raid.

Sabih had taken the photograph with him, but the family did not grow suspicious until he failed to show up for the sundown dinner that breaks the daytime fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

This put them a step behind Israel's security forces, who were already on his trail. Sunday evening, Israel issued a high alert for a possible attack in Jerusalem, believing this was the bomber's target.

Israeli security officials declined to comment on the information that led to the alert. But Israel maintains a large number of Palestinian informants, or collaborators, and the warning suggested the security forces had been tipped off.

By Monday morning, the warning had been revised to central Israel, across the border from the West Bank town of Qalqiliya. The bomber was believed to have moved there overnight, with plans to enter Israel north of Jerusalem.

Around midday, Israeli troops in armored jeeps began scouring the village of Azun, near Qalqiliya. The troops apparently had not spotted Sabih before he rushed toward one of their jeeps and blew himself up, a military official said.…

The Abu Sauds now face the threat of having the family home demolished by Israeli troops for a second time. The first was in 1986, after Nasser Abu Saud was convicted of killing a Palestinian suspected of collaborating with Israel. Israel says that tearing down the homes of Palestinian attackers serves as both punishment and a deterrent.…

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/06/international/middleeast/06BOMB.html