Palestinian bomber recovering in Israeli hospital

AFULA, Israel -- Zeidan Zeidan failed in his suicide bombing mission and now has second thoughts. Rethinking his fate in an Israeli hospital bed, he has decided he wouldn't want to die. Next time he would open fire at Israelis with a rifle.

Zeidan was wounded when the bomb he was carrying in a backpack partially detonated at a busy highway junction in central Israel on May 8. Pictures of him being dragged by a bomb-squad robot were shown around the world. Police were concerned that he might have strapped explosives to his body, as many suicide bombers do.

Now he is being treated at Afula Hospital, on the same floor as patients who were injured in a tragically successful suicide attack nearly a month later. Seventeen people were killed in the attack on June 5, when a Palestinian bomber drove an explosive-laden car up alongside a moving passenger bus in northern Israel.

Both Zeidan's act and the attack on the bus were claimed by the Islamic Jihad militant group, which tells its followers they will go to heaven if they kill Jews. This group and others like it have claimed responsibility for dozens of deadly attacks.

Mixing bravado with immaturity, Zeidan, a skinny 20-year-old with a wispy mustache, said of his bungled bombing, "I wouldn't do it again." But the sentiment was not expressed with remorse: Zeidan says he'd rather survive so he could talk about the attack.

Next time, "I would become a fighter, and if I saw any Jews I wouldn't hesitate to shoot them, but I wouldn't want to hurt myself," Zeidan said, shackled and handcuffed to his hospital bed.

Though seriously injured and facing a lengthy jail term, Zeidan says his only regret is that his attempt to carry out an attack on Israelis failed. "I am sorry it didn't work because now I will not have a better life in paradise," he said.

Zeidan shrugged. "I wanted to be with God," he said, waving his hands heavenward. "It is better to go there than do nothing here."

Palestinians say the Israeli restrictions imposed during the violence have ruined their economy and made many young people desperate, creating fertile ground for extremist recruiters. The Israelis say the restrictions are necessary for security.

A high school dropout, Zeidan lived with his parents and seven siblings in the West Bank town of Jenin.

He regularly attended prayers at his mosque but was not involved with any of the militant groups active in Jenin, saying "politics is just to fool people." Then, relatives say, he approached a local Islamic Jihad leader and offered to carry out an attack.

Zeidan's mission was postponed for a month while bitter fighting raged in Jenin during an intensive military campaign by the Israeli army in the West Bank, which was meant to root out militants, including potential bombers.

Soon after the fighting ended, Islamic Jihad contacted Zeidan. Three days later, with only the briefest explanation of how to detonate the bomb, he was ready for his mission.

The morning of the attack Zeidan woke at 4 a.m. and kissed his mother goodbye, as he did every day went he left for morning prayers. But instead of going to mosque, he walked about 10 miles to the Megiddo junction in northern Israel. He remembers being very happy. The bomb he was carrying had been doused in cheap perfume to disguise its foul smell, he said.

Israeli police spotted him before he could detonate the device, and fired at him. "There was no time to press the button, but I had planned to," he said.

Despite his own intentions, Zeidan said he hoped the victims of last week's bus bombing "would get better.

"But then I heard some of them wished the doctors wouldn't take care of me and I got angry," he said.