"The Israeli government felt so threatened by the power of his word, that they assassinated him on July 8, 1972, in Beirut, Lebanon. He was only 34 years old.”
It failed, however, to mention that, as well as being a leading novelist, Kanafani was the public face of the PFLP, which is proscribed as a terrorist group in the US, until his death.
He was assassinated in a car bombing carried out by Mossad in the wake of that year’s Lod Airport Massacre.
The attack was masterminded by the PFLP, which recruited member of the Japanese Red Army (a militant communist group) to assault what is now Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. The three terrorists used Czechoslovakian assault rifles and grenades to kill 26 people and wound 80.
Kanafani himself was seen in photographs with the three perpetrators – Kōzō Okamoto, Tsuyoshi Okudaira and Yasuyuki Yasuda – in the run up to the attack and, as PFLP spokesperson, was the one who claimed responsibility for it on behalf of the group.
The massacre was among the deadliest terror attacks in Israeli history until the Hamas-led massacres on October 7, 2023.
IfNotNow has been contacted for comment.
