Coastal road massacre
The Coastal Road Massacre was a Palestinian hijacking and subsequent shootout with Israeli forces involving an inter-city bus driving along Israel's Coastal Highway that resulted in the deaths of thirty five civilians, thirteen of them children, and wounded seventy-one civilians.[1][2] The attack was masterminded by Abu Jihad[3] and undertaken by the PLO faction Fatah. Israel said that the raiders intended to hijack the bus to Tel Aviv, seize a luxury hotel and take tourists and foreign ambassadors as hostages in order to exchange them for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.[4] The timing was aimed at scuttling any peace talks between Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat.[5] Fatah called the hijacking "The Operation of the Martyr Kamal Adman," after a Palestinian leader killed in an Israeli commando raid on the center of Beirut in April 1973.[6]
Hijacking and gun battle
On the morning of March 11, 1978, Dalal Mughrabi and her Palestinian Fedayeen unit of eleven members (including one other woman) landed by Zodiac boats on a beach near Ma'agan Michael north of Tel Aviv, having departed from Lebanon. They killed Gail Ruban (some sources spell Rubin [7]), an American photographer who was taking nature photographs nearby, and then hijacked a bus full of Egged bus drivers and their families on a day outing, on the Coastal Highway.
While driving, Mughrabi and her unit opened fire and threw grenades at passing cars, and shot at the passengers and dumped at least one body out of the bus.[5] At one point they commandeered another bus, and forced the passengers from the first bus to crowd onto the second.[5] The bus was finally stopped by a Police roadblock near Herzliya; the Israelis did not have time to call out anti-terrorist troops. A long shooting battle between the Palestinians and the Police ensued. The Palestinians started shooting the passengers that attempted to escape.[5] Time magazine reported that "The police commander at the roadblock gave a blanket open-fire order to terrified traffic cops, and their wild fusillade when the bus was finally halted probably killed more hostages than did the terrorists. Worse, it may have driven some of the terrorists to commit suicide—and to take as many passengers as possible with them."[7] An explosion, caused either by an exploding fuel tank, or a grenade set the bus on fire.[8] In total, thirty five civilians, thirteen of them children (38 by some sources) were killed and seventy-one civilians were wounded.[9] There is lack of certainty over the fates of all the Palestinian attackers. Extensive searches were undertaken in the Gush Dan area for additional attackers, but they weren't found and were likely killed.[citation needed] Some claim that 2 Palestinians were arrested by Israel.[citation needed] Mughrabi's leadership role in the attack marked the emergence of women as full-fledged members of militant movements.[citation needed]
The Israeli security forces handling of the incident, including the final gun battle at the blockade where the bus was stopped, [7][5] led to widespread criticism in Israel. The security forces were also criticized for the fact that the militants were reportedly able to land undetected in broad daylight, enjoy a meal on the beach with wine, and then move inland to ambush a taxi and then the two buses. There was also criticism that the security forces did not immediately block off the highway as soon as they were aware that a bus with hostages aboard had been hijacked.[10]
Palestinian Media Watch, an Israeli NGO that monitors antisemitism and support for terrorism in Palestinian society, cites examples of Palestinian media that regard Dalal Mughrabi as a heroine and role model.[11] A Hebron girls' school was briefly named in honor of Mughrabi but the name was changed after it emerged that USAID was funding the school. Her name has also been given to summer camps and both police and military courses.[12]
The attack was the immediate trigger for the Israeli Operation Litani against PLO bases in Lebanon three days later
References
- ^ "1978, March 11. The Coastal Road Massacre" Richard Ernest Dupuy, Trevor Nevitt Dupuy. The Encyclopedia of Military History from 3500 B.C. to the Present, Harper & Row, 1986, ISBN 0061812358, p. 1362.
- ^ "Operation Litani is launched in retaliation for that month's Coastal Road massacre." Gregory S. Mahler. Politics and Government in Israel: The Maturation of a Modern State, Rowman & Littlefield, 2004, ISBN 0742516113, p. 259.
- ^ "Israel's successful assassinations" (in Hebrew). MSN. Retrieved 2008-03-29.
- ^ Moshe Brilliant, "Israeli officials Say Gunmen Intended to Seize Hotel," The New York Times, 13 March 1978
- ^ a b c d e "A Sabbath of Terror", Time magazine, March 20, 1978.
- ^ Greenaway, HDS, "Arab Terrorist Raid in Israel Kills 30," Washington Post, 12 March 1978.
- ^ a b c "Tragedy of errors". Time (magazine) March 27 1978. Retrieved 2008-06-01. Cite error: The named reference "tragedy" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- ^ Kim Willenson, Milan J. Kubic and William E. Schmidt, "Slaughter in Israel," Newsweek, 20 March 1978
- ^ Deeb, Marius (2003). Syria's Terrorist War on Lebanon and the Peace Process. Palgrave McMillian. p. 39. ISBN 1-4039-6248-0.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ HDS Greenway, "Begin Hints Israel to Retaliate for Raid," Washington Post, 14 March 1978
- ^ Special report # 39: Palestinian Culture and Society (Study #6 -Mar. 12,2002) "Encouraging Women Terrorists" by Itamar Marcus http://www.pmw.org.il/specrep-39.html accessed 24/7/2008
- ^ http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=13227 accessed 23/7/2008