WHY A TEENAGE PALESTINIAN LONGS TO DIE KILLING ISRAELIS: WEARING OF

IN a narrow Bethlehem street, a schoolgirl looks up adoringly at a poster of a handsome young man brandishing a Kalashnikov.

With all the devotion of a teenage pop groupie she stares into his defiant face and declares: "He is my hero, he gave everything for his people. One day, as soon as I can, I will do that too."

Senabel Abdul Jawad El Farajieh is just 15, but she already knows she wants to die like her hero in the poster, Mohammed Daraghmeh, an 18-year-old suicide bomber.

In this city that lies close to Israel's capital Jerusalem, the young girls don't worship pop idols or movie stars, they idolise the suicide bombers - or as they call them "martyrs".

Mohammed blew himself up two weeks ago in a quiet Jerusalem religious neighbour-hood, killing nine people including a baby and a toddler in a pushchair.

He was one of 56 suicide bombers who have killed 109 Israeli civilians and five security personnel in the last 17 months.

And Senabel too believes that sacrificing her life will make a better future for the Palestinian people. "This is the only way that will make it possible for us to live in peace," she says.

Senabel knew Mohammed well enough to believe he acted with the best of motives. "Mohammed was a brave strong guy who carried out a brave and heroic act and didn't fear Israel. It was a fair response to atrocities we've suffered since 1948.

"We want heroes, just like other countries have heroes. But our heroes are not soccer players or movie stars any more. I'm just one of the girls who'd like to carry out the same act as Mohammed."

What makes Senabel's determination to become a suicide bomber even more remarkable is that as a member of a dance troupe she was once involved in a peace initiative with Israeli children. She performed her national dance to a Jewish audience in America in 1999.

Now she says: "When I do my act of martyrdom I don't care if I kill Israeli children. They are all going to be soldiers one day."

As if to justify her attitude, she shows me a wall adorned with posters of dead former school-mates. And she says: "I wish to God to be like these martyrs."

Senabel's bitterness, like that of most Palestinian Arabs, started early. She's the daughter of journalist Hassan Abdul Jawad, who has been imprisoned 13 times for his anti-Israeli activities.

And she is a member of a dance company called the National Dance Troupe - for which suicide bomber Mohammed was a drummer. The troupe is rapidly becoming "a school for martyrs".

Senabel's dance partner Hamed, who like her is 15, also aspires to become a suicide bomber one day. "I love life," he says. "But if I have to sacrifice myself so Palestine can be free and the people can return to their land, I will do that, without fear."

She now lives in the Deheisheh refugee camp, a dusty cramped warren of narrow alleys housing 11,000 people in half a square kilometre of mud-brick houses.

When she was young her parents were exiled to Jordan after her father Hassan was jailed, then expelled by Israel. The songs they sang in their refugee camp were often about lands lost to the "hated Jews". Children as young as seven were picked out by militaristic youth movements, attending camps with assault courses and chanting slogans like "with our blood and our souls we will liberate Palestine".

To Westerners - and some Palestinians who find this indoctrination hard to swallow - Palestinian leaders retort: "What other weapons do we have than our sons and daughters? When the Israelis have so much power and we have nothing?"

They insist that it is only right that they have their own Palestinian state - and the bombings are the only means of attaining that. In the week since Israeli soldiers rolled into Bethlehem in their tanks, homes close to Senabel's have been set ablaze. Scores of Palestinians have been shot.

She says: "I am even more determined now I've seen the Jewish soldiers face-to-face. The Jews have no right to Palestine. I would kill them and me today if I could."

Meanwhile, on a hilltop inside the camp, Mohammed's parents and relatives sit on plastic chairs in a narrow alley, receiving a stream of well-wishers offering

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