The killings gained widespread international attention due to Ayat's age and gender and the fact that one of the victims was also a teenage girl.

In February 2014, Israel returned the remains of Ayat to her family as part of prisoner swaps, enabling them to arrange her funeral.

After the 1967 Six Day War in which Israeli occupied Gaza, Akhras' parents migrated to the Dehaishe camp, described as "a maze of cinder-block buildings, refuse-strewn alleyways and open sewers".

On 8 March 2002, a close friend and neighbor of Akhras that was playing with his toddler was hit by a stray bullet fired by Israeli troops as they were on a "counter-terrorism" operation.

[2] However, Israeli intelligence reports indicate that Akhras was impregnated by a Fatah operative, despite being an unmarried teenager, and that the emotional and social consequences of her unplanned pregnancy were the primary reason she decided to commit a suicide attack.

[citation needed] Hamas, which has claimed responsibility for many suicide bombings in Israel says that the basis for this rule lies in teachings of the Qur'an that says Jihad is the domain of the male.

In 2002, the spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheik Ahmed Yassin made a statement to the press after Akhras' bombing saying that the group would only use women after they ran out of men.

Before her attack, Akhras, like many other Palestinian suicide bombers, made a video in which she lashed out at the regimes and militaries of Muslim nations throughout the world.

The Saudi Ambassador to the UK, Ghazi Abdul Rahman Algosaibi - a scholar and top politician in Saudi Arabia, wrote a poem in praise of al-Akhras, for which he was criticized by the UK and US governments, and among some Palestinians and Islamic militants, Akhras became a martyr (hero) figure, but the reaction among Akhras' family was mixed.

Prima di Lasciarsi (Before We Say Goodbye) by Gabriella Ambrosio is a novel based on Ayat al-Akras' story, published in Italy in 2004 by Nutrimenti and was awarded at the Festival du Premier Romance in Chambéry, France.

In 2008 the book's publication in both in Arabic and Hebrew was sponsored by Amnesty International and employed by Israeli colleges and human rights organizations working in Israel and the Palestinian Territories as an educational tool.

It has then been published in the UK, Australia, and in New Zealand by Walker Books, in France as "Deuze Heures Avant"(Gallimard), in Germany as "Der Himmel uber Jerusalem" (Fischer Verlag) as well as in Spain (Noguer), Turkey (Remzi Kitabevi), Greece (Psichogios), Korea (JoongAng) and China (Jieli publishing house).