Suicide Bombers

— -- A Talk With Dr. Eyad Sarraj

They are not depressed. They are not insane. They are not even suicidal. Still, they are willing to turn themselves into a human bomb killing themselves and anyone nearby. Why?

No one understands the psychology behind the suicide bomber better than Palestinian psychiatrist Eyad Sarraj. Inside his tiny clinic in Gaza City he has been working with Palestinian children for 15 years. He remembers, shortly after returning from his practice in England, when he first heard a young man talk about killing himself in order to kill Israelis.

The young man was angry, so angry that he talked about blowing himself up, Sarraj recalled.

"I believe that every single case of a suicide bomber is attributed directly to a history of trauma during childhood," Sarraj said. "Witnessing the beating and the humiliation of the leaders of their fathers. Seeing people killed or destroyed, having your home demolished, having your landscape destroyed. These are the kinds of traumas Palestinian children have been subjected to and from this pool of traumatized children you have suicide bombers."

According to a study conducted by Sarraj's clinic, 45 percent of the children if Gaza witnessed the beating and the humiliation of their fathers --including being stopped at checkpoints by Israeli soldiers and homes destroyed. That has had a profound effect on this generation of young suicide bombers.

"If this young man is recruited into a group," Sarraj explained. "It's important. A group identity becomes important it's a replacement of the father identity who was so helpless." So the potential would be bomber believes, "I am so powerful because I belong to a group that gives me a new identity. That is important."

So too is understanding the living conditions that many suicide bombers come from.

Gaza, for example, is home to more than 1 million Palestinians and is the most densely populated piece of land in the world. Most residents in Gaza live dispersed throughout eight refugee camps.