AMARI REFUGEE CAMP - Wafa Idris woke up on Sunday at 8 A.M. "It's late, why didn't you wake me?" she asked her 60-year-old mother, Wasfiye, who yesterday afternoon was sitting on a mattress in a neighbor's house and with dry eyes answered all the questions from the many reporters in the room.

In her hands she held a photograph of her daughter on the day she finished a Red Crescent first aid course. Idris, 28, was a Red Crescent volunteer and a member of an ambulance team.

She was born in the Amari refugee camp near Ramallah, and usually was at work by 9 A.M., her relatives remembered yesterday.

When she wasn't home by 4 P.M. on Sunday, the usual hour, they weren't worried. But by evening they began to wonder what might have happened.

Sometimes, the ambulance went far from Ramallah, and occasionally Idris would stay overnight with relatives in Jericho.

Family members began calling friends to ask if they knew where she was. They weren't able to make phone contact with Jericho. But everyone heard about the bombing in Jerusalem and that it probably was a woman.

Nobody imagined that it could have been Wafa, especially because of the rumors that it was a student from Nablus, and later, an Islamic Jihad member from Bethlehem. They didn't think of calling the Palestinian security forces; Khalil, Wafa's brother, explained that when a girl or woman goes missing, it's a sensitive issue for the family, a secret to be kept.

The family kept that secret until Tuesday afternoon. Her mother, who recently had heart surgery, felt bad on Tuesday.

She said she felt that her daughter was dead. She was rushed to the hospital. On Tuesday night, while still at the hospital, she heard women crying. Did something happen to Wafa, she asked. "No, no," they answered, and she realized that Wafa was dead.

Shortly before that, a local TV station in the Bethlehem area broadcast a leaflet sent from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade announcing that Wafa Idris was the mysterious woman bomber on Jerusalem's Jaffa Road. In some areas of Ramallah, that station's broadcasts are picked up and people began calling Khalil to report. Representatives of the security forces began arriving in the refugee camp.

The mother, after getting a shot to calm her nerves, went home.

The neighbors offered to host the hundreds of women who began arriving with condolences, and the journalists.

Yesterday, the mother was surrounded by elderly women. Their eyes were dry. Opposite them were the younger women, their eyes red from weeping. Wafa's cousin was asked why she thought only the young women were crying. "You should have heard the old ones crying yesterday. It was impossible to stop them."

One of the weeping women remembered that she saw Wafa on Saturday afternoon at the hospital. Her hands were covered in blood from a casualty. Aren't you afraid of the blood? she asked the volunteer. Idris answered: "There will be lots more blood."

The mother, the friends, the neighbors and relatives all agreed that they never expected Wafa would commit a suicide bombing. They had no idea she was involved in military affairs. In the same breath, they said they were proud of her. Some of the older women, bombarded with questions by the journalists, said if they could, they would commit a suicide bombing. Only a cousin hesitated when she was asked. "Every person and what's in their heart," she said.

Everyone rejected the idea proposed by some reporters, that Idris volunteered for the suicide mission because she could not have children. She married at a young age, and lost a child in her seventh month. After several years of treatment, doctors told her she would not be able to give birth. Her husband divorced her and remarried, and within two years already had two children. But that wasn't the reason for Idris' suicide bombing.

"She came home from work every day and told us what she saw: a wounded child, a youth whose brains were spilled by a bullet, a young man with a bullet in his heart, eyes that were red from tear gas," said one of the women. "Why go through all that, and for no pay?" her mother said she asked her, and said Idris answered, "For our country and our people."

Was it a worthy action, considering it took the life of an elderly man? "And what about our children who are killed?" answered the women. "So many of us have been killed. Why don't you ask the Jews what they are doing? When they demolish our homes and kill us with missiles and shells. They took our rights and our homes. We are only defending ourselves. What good are rocks against tanks?"

Someone remembered Idris as full of life, active from a young age in Fatah's Shabiba and the women's committee. "She loved to live, to enjoy," said someone.

In the local community center, run by the refugees committee, a mourners tent was opened for the men. The Fatah leaders in the refugee camp were prominent. Later regional Fatah officials arrived, including Marwan Barghouti. A few masked youths announced their arrival with gun shots into the air. One used red paint to spray graffiti on the wall declaring that the Al Aqsa Brigades proudly announces that the suicide bomber was Wafa Idris. They handed out a leaflet describing "the miracle of resistance and defense of Palestinian honor, the miracle of the revenge of our brave martyrs." The operation, the leaflet said, took place in the heart of "the Zionist entity."