Israel‘admits 1988 killing Abu Jihad’
ISRAEL: Israel has for the first time admitted assassinating the
PLO's former number two, Abu Jihad, in a raid on the movement's Tunis
headquarters in 1988, a newspaper reported on Thursday.
The report, published in Israel's top-selling Yediot Aharonot, said
the operation was planned by the Mossad spy agency and carried out by
the Sayeret Matkal elite commando unit. Abu Jihad, whose real name was
Khalil al-Wazir, was shot dead in the early hours of April 16, 1988 in a
commando raid on the PLO headquarters by what was presumed to be Israeli
agents. “Israel killed the number two man in the PLO, Abu Jihad, in
Tunis in 1988, it can now be reported. The intelligence part of the
assassination was overseen by the Mossad, and the operational side was
carried out by Sayeret Matkal,” the paper said.
Publication of details about the operation was made possible after
six months of negotiations between Yediot Aharonot and Israel's military
censors, the paper said. Mossad did not immediately respond to requests
for comment on the article.
The operation was commanded by Nahum Lev who, in an interview before
his death in 2000, spoke frankly about his role in the operation
although it was never published.
“I had read every page of the file on him,” he said. “Abu Jihad was
connected to horrific acts against civilians. He was marked for death. I
shot him with no hesitation.” A long-time friend and deputy to the
veteran leader Yasser Arafat who headed the Palestine Liberation
Organisation, Abu Jihad had played a leading role in directing the
1987-1994 intifada uprising against the Israeli occupation. “For us, it
was the state of Israel which assassinated Abu Jihad,” said Mahmud al-Alul,
a former assistant to the PLO deputy, and now a senior official in the
Fatah movement of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas. “Abu Jihad was not
assassinated by a soldier but by a decision of the Israeli government
and its military leadership,” he told AFP, saying it was clear to the
world which Israeli officials were responsible.
“Everybody knows who the prime minister was and the defence minister,
and the heads of the security establishment. For us, they are
responsible for killing him,” Alul said. At the time, Yitzhak Shamir was
premier, and the defence minister was Yitzhak Rabin, who later served as
prime minister until he was killed by a rightwing extremist in 1995.
Ehud Barak, the current defence minister, was the deputy chief of
staff at the time, and Moshe Yaalon, now strategic affairs minister, was
the unit commander of Sayeret Matkal. Details outlined in the report
show that 26 Sayeret Matkal commandos arrived on the beach in Tunis on
the evening of April 15 and separated into two groups who were
transported by car to a spot less than 500 metres (yards) from Abu
Jihad's house.
AFP |
