"On this day in 2003, Palestinian Islamic Jihad heroine Hiba Azim Daraghmeh (R.A.) carried out an istishhadiyah (self-sacrificing) operation at a mall in occupied Afula, sending 3 'Israeli' colonizers to hell and wounding 70 more. Those are the official enemy casualties... The real numbers are likely much higher. Shahida Hiba, a moujahida of the most sensational station, was only 19 years old.
Originally from Tubas in the occupied West Bank, she was deeply religious from a young age and did not interact with men at all. Not even her own cousins. She never missed a prayer, usually spending two hours for every du'a, and loved to read--especially the Holy Qur'an.
English literature is what she was studying at university... If she didn't take up arms against the demonic, depraved occupier of her ancestral land, perhaps she would've been a poet; a novelist; a teacher; or all of the above.
Before heading out to execute her martyrdom maneuver, she watered her family's almond, olive and pomegranate trees... And took a few extra moments to smell the roses as well. It was as if... the musk of Jannah and the taste of its libations were already imprinted on her spirit.
Her brother, Bakr, was shot, arrested, imprisoned and tortured by the 'Israeli' enemy for his Resistance activity with Kata'ib Shouhada al-Aqsa. On the day he was abducted by IOF, the terrorists stormed the Daraghmeh family home and ripped apart her books--including her Holy Qur'an.
A week later, she was stopped by IOF, harassed and forced to take off her Hijab.
The rage boiled within her veins and the desire for justice burned just a notch below the fire she felt for Islam itself.
And then... 21 years ago... She executed her action, rattling the whole of the Jewish occupation from its crooked spine to its gnarled feet. There are fighters. There are heroes. There are giants. And then there is Shahida Hiba, who towers above them all. Verily, there is no beauty like hers."