A keffiyeh-clad Palestinian woman. Photo: Wikipedia.

Though incitement spurred the current terror wave, another interesting phenomenon has come to light where female perpetrators are concerned, a member of the Israeli cabinet said on Wednesday, Israel’s Channel 2 reported.

During a pre-Passover toast at the Knesset, Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan pointed to what he claimed came as a surprise when examining the willingness of young Palestinians to commit stabbing, car-ramming and other attacks – inspired by content on the Internet.

“I thought it couldn’t be that they believe the lies [spread on social media],” Erdan said, referring to claims, for example, that Jews are trying to storm the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

But then, said Erdan, who also serves as minister of strategic affairs and information, “I went and read the transcripts of the interrogations of the terrorists who had been apprehended. It is simply unbelievable. The terrorists said they had returned from an event organized by the Islamic Movement, where they became convinced that Israel was really about to destroy the mosques, and they felt the need to contribute to the cause by trying to kill Jews.”

It was while reading those transcripts, Erdan said, that he came across a phenomenon he hadn’t encountered before. “Whereas they used to promise terrorists 72 virgins [in paradise], now what has happened is that some of the terrorists were so good-looking that their female counterparts told their interrogators that they had wanted to die in order to hook up with them.”

Erdan’s comments came two days after Monday’s bus bombing in Jerusalem, in which 20 Israelis were wounded, and the person believed to be the terrorist later died of his injuries. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack, and named Bethlehem resident Abdel Hamid Abu Srour, 19, as the perpetrator.

This attack, the investigation of which is under a strict gag order, came after a relative lull in the spate of Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israelis that began in September – and following the recent discovery of a Hamas-constructed terror tunnel extending from Gaza into southern Israel.