Mossad assassinations following the Munich massacre
Based on Wikipedia: Mossad assassinations following the Munich massacre
Flowers arrived with a card. The message was simple: "A reminder we do not forget or forgive." Hours later, the recipient would be dead.
This was the signature of one of the longest and most controversial assassination campaigns in modern history—a methodical hunt that stretched across continents and decades, driven by a single traumatic event at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
The Massacre That Changed Everything
On September 5, 1972, eight members of a Palestinian militant group called Black September infiltrated the Olympic Village in Munich, West Germany. They took eleven Israeli athletes and coaches hostage. By the time the crisis ended in a botched rescue attempt at a military airfield, all eleven Israelis were dead, along with a West German police officer and five of the attackers.
The world watched in horror. Television cameras had been rolling for what was supposed to be a celebration of international unity. Instead, they broadcast a massacre.
Two days later, Israeli jets bombed ten Palestine Liberation Organization bases in Syria and Lebanon. But for Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, air strikes weren't enough. She wanted something more personal. Something that would haunt the Palestinian militant leadership for years to come.
Committee X
Meir assembled a small, secretive group that became known as Committee X. She placed herself at its head alongside Defense Minister Moshe Dayan. General Aharon Yariv became her Advisor on Counterterrorism, and together with Mossad Director Zvi Zamir, these men would orchestrate what came next.
Mossad—short for HaMossad leModiʿin uleTafkidim Meyuḥadim, which translates to "The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations"—is Israel's national intelligence agency, roughly equivalent to the American CIA or British MI6. But Mossad has always maintained a more aggressive operational posture than its Western counterparts, particularly when it comes to targeted killings.
The committee's conclusion was stark: to deter future attacks, they needed to kill everyone connected to Munich. Not quietly. Dramatically. They wanted the world—and especially Palestinian militants—to know that Israel would pursue them anywhere, for as long as it took.
Meir was reportedly reluctant at first. But then West Germany released the three surviving Munich attackers just months later, handing them over to secure the release of a hijacked Lufthansa plane. Whatever reservations she had evaporated.
The Kill List
Israeli intelligence began compiling names. They drew on Palestinian operatives who secretly worked for Mossad, information from friendly European spy agencies, and their own extensive files. The final list contained somewhere between twenty and thirty-five targets—a mix of Black September operatives and broader Palestine Liberation Organization figures.
The exact contents of that list have never been made public. What we know comes from the bodies that accumulated over the following years.
Critical to the planning was something intelligence professionals call "plausible deniability"—structuring operations so that even if everyone suspected Israel was responsible, it could never be definitively proven. The assassinations needed to be untraceable, at least officially.
But there was another goal beyond simply eliminating threats. David Kimche, who would later become deputy head of Mossad, explained it bluntly: "The aim was not so much revenge but mainly to make them frightened. We wanted to make them look over their shoulders and feel that we are upon them."
The psychological warfare was deliberate. They didn't just want to kill. They wanted to terrorize.
The Death Squads
A Mossad officer named Michael Harari was tasked with building the assassination teams. What emerged was an intricate structure using code names drawn from the Hebrew alphabet.
The Aleph squad consisted of two trained killers—the triggermen. Bet was their shadow, two guards who watched the assassins' backs. Het handled logistics: renting hotel rooms, apartments, and cars to provide cover for everyone else. Ayin was the largest group, six to eight agents who conducted surveillance on targets and mapped escape routes. Finally, Qoph managed communications.
Altogether, each team numbered around fifteen people, though Harari eventually commanded three separate teams of roughly twelve members each.
These units may have been part of a larger Mossad division called Caesarea, which specialized in covert operations abroad. In the mid-1970s, Caesarea would be reorganized and renamed Kidon—Hebrew for "bayonet" or "spear tip"—the name by which Mossad's assassination units are known today.
One account claims the teams operated with significant independence from direct government control, communicating only with Harari. Whether this was genuine autonomy or simply another layer of deniability remains unclear.
Rome, October 1972: The First Kill
Wael Zwaiter was the Palestine Liberation Organization's representative in Italy. To most who knew him, he was a poet and intellectual who had translated One Thousand and One Nights into Italian. Israel saw something different: a Black September operative involved in a failed plot to bomb an El Al airliner.
On the night of October 16, 1972—barely a month after Munich—Zwaiter returned to his apartment building in Rome after dinner. Mossad agents were waiting in the lobby. They shot him twelve times.
The agents vanished into a network of safe houses. Zwaiter's killing sent a clear message: the hunt had begun.
The Palestine Liberation Organization disputed Israel's characterization of Zwaiter entirely. Abu Iyad, the organization's deputy chief, insisted Zwaiter was "energetically" opposed to terrorism. This would become a recurring pattern—Israel claiming its targets were terrorists, while Palestinian officials insisted they were diplomats, intellectuals, or innocent bystanders.
Paris, December 1972: Death by Telephone
Mahmoud Hamshari was the Palestine Liberation Organization representative in France, and Israel believed he led Black September operations there. His assassination would showcase Mossad's technical ingenuity.
An agent posing as an Italian journalist made contact with Hamshari and arranged a meeting, which required Hamshari to leave his Paris apartment. While he was gone, a demolition team slipped inside and planted a bomb beneath his desk telephone.
On December 8, the fake journalist called. "Am I speaking with Mahmoud Hamshari?" he asked. When Hamshari confirmed his identity, the agent signaled his colleagues. They sent an electronic signal down the telephone line that detonated the bomb.
The explosion didn't kill Hamshari immediately. He remained conscious long enough to tell investigators exactly what had happened—a remarkable detail that suggests the bomb was designed for proximity rather than power, perhaps to minimize collateral damage. Hamshari died in the hospital several weeks later.
The day after the Munich massacre, Hamshari had given an interview saying he wasn't worried for his life but didn't want to "taunt the devil." The devil, it turned out, was already listening.
Cyprus, January 1973: The Hotel Room Bomb
Hussein Al Bashir was a Jordanian who represented Fatah—the largest faction within the Palestine Liberation Organization—in Cyprus. Israel considered him the head of Black September on the island, though his close connections to the Soviet intelligence agency known as the KGB may have been an additional factor in his targeting.
On the night of January 24, 1973, Al Bashir switched off the lights in his room at the Olympic Hotel in Nicosia. A bomb planted beneath his bed detonated remotely, killing him instantly and destroying the room.
Paris, April 1973: The Professor
Basil Al Kubaisi taught law at the American University of Beirut. Israel suspected him of managing weapons logistics for Black September and involvement in other Palestinian operations. On April 6, 1973, as he walked home from dinner in Paris, two Mossad agents shot him approximately twelve times.
The Paris police noted that the bullets were "carefully grouped about his heart and in his head." Professional work.
Beirut, April 1973: Spring of Youth
Some targets were beyond the reach of assassination squads operating covertly in European cities. Three senior Palestine Liberation Organization figures lived in heavily guarded buildings in Lebanon. Killing them required something larger.
On the night of April 9, 1973, Israeli commandos launched what they called Operation Spring of Youth. Elite soldiers from three different units—Sayeret Matkal (Israel's premier special forces unit, roughly equivalent to Delta Force or the British SAS), Shayetet 13 (naval commandos), and Sayeret Tzanhanim (paratrooper reconnaissance)—approached the Lebanese coast in Zodiac speedboats launched from Israeli Navy missile boats offshore.
Mossad agents waiting onshore drove the commandos to their targets in rental cars. The soldiers wore civilian clothes. Some were dressed as women, complete with wigs and fake breasts, allowing them to move through Beirut's streets without arousing suspicion.
Their targets were Muhammad Youssef al-Najjar, Black September's operations leader; Kamal Adwan, the Palestine Liberation Organization's chief of operations; and Kamal Nasser, an executive committee member and spokesman. The commandos raided their guarded apartment buildings and killed all three.
The operation wasn't surgical. Two Lebanese police officers died. An Italian citizen was killed. Al-Najjar's wife was shot. Israeli commandos also attacked a six-story building serving as headquarters for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Marxist faction more radical than Fatah. Two Israeli soldiers died in heavy fighting, but they demolished the building. Other teams struck weapons factories and fuel dumps.
Estimates of the Palestinian death toll that night range from twelve to one hundred.
The Rapid Follow-Up
The Beirut raid triggered a flurry of subsequent attacks, suggesting either pre-positioned teams or remarkable operational tempo.
Two days after Spring of Youth, on April 11, Zaiad Muchasi—who had replaced the killed Hussein Al Bashir as Black September's man in Cyprus—died when a bomb exploded in his Athens hotel room. The same week, two Black September members in Rome, Abdel Hamid Shibi and Abdel Hadi Nakaa, were seriously wounded when their car exploded.
On June 28, 1973, Mohammad Boudia met his end. The Algerian-born director of Black September operations in France was known for elaborate disguises and numerous romantic entanglements. Mossad agents had been following him for some time. They placed a pressure-activated bomb—packed with heavy nuts and bolts to maximize shrapnel—under the driver's seat of his car. When he sat down, he detonated it himself.
The Red Prince
Throughout all these operations, one name remained at the top of Mossad's list: Ali Hassan Salameh.
Salameh was the head of Force 17, Yasser Arafat's personal security detail, and Israel believed him to be the mastermind of the Munich massacre. The Palestinians called him the Red Prince—partly for his communist leanings, partly for his flamboyant lifestyle.
Whether Salameh actually planned Munich has been disputed. Senior Black September officials later claimed that while he was involved in many attacks across Europe, he had no connection to the Olympic operation. The truth may never be known.
What is certain is that Mossad wanted him dead more than anyone else on their list.
Lillehammer: The Catastrophic Mistake
In July 1973, Mossad received intelligence that Salameh was hiding in Lillehammer, a small Norwegian town that would later host the 1994 Winter Olympics. A team was dispatched.
On July 21, the agents spotted a man they believed to be Salameh and followed him. When he stepped off a bus with a pregnant woman, two agents approached and shot him multiple times.
The dead man was Ahmed Bouchiki, a Moroccan waiter who had nothing whatsoever to do with Black September, the Palestine Liberation Organization, or the Munich massacre. He was simply walking home with his pregnant wife.
Norwegian police moved quickly. They arrested six Mossad agents, including two women. Others escaped, among them team leader Michael Harari. Five of those captured were convicted and imprisoned, though all were released by 1975 and returned to Israel.
The Lillehammer affair was a catastrophe for Mossad. The arrested agents compromised safe houses, cover identities, and operational methods across Europe. International outrage forced Golda Meir to suspend the entire operation.
In a bitter twist, there are reports that Salameh himself fed Mossad the false information that led them to Lillehammer, deliberately sacrificing an innocent man to throw his hunters off the trail.
Continued Pursuit
Despite the suspension, attempts on Salameh's life continued—or at least, events occurred that suggest continued pursuit.
In January 1974, Mossad agents reportedly deployed to Switzerland after learning Salameh would meet Palestine Liberation Organization leaders at a church. Two assassins entered and encountered three Arab-appearing men. When one reached for a weapon, all three were shot dead. Salameh wasn't among them. The team searched the church but found nothing. The mission was aborted.
Michael Harari ordered no further attempts on Salameh. His Kidon team reportedly ignored him and tried once more, this time in Tarifa, Spain. When an Arab security guard raised an AK-47 assault rifle as agents approached a suspect safe house, they shot him and fled. Another failure.
Five Years Later
In 1978, a new Israeli Prime Minister—Menachem Begin—authorized the resumption of operations. Those still alive on the original list would be hunted again.
Mossad finally located Salameh in Beirut that autumn. They began meticulous surveillance of his movements. In November, a female agent using the name Erika Chambers entered Lebanon on a British passport and rented an apartment on Rue Verdun, a street Salameh frequented. Other agents arrived using various passports—British, Canadian—and established their own positions.
Sometime after their arrival, a Volkswagen packed with plastic explosives was parked along Rue Verdun, positioned within sight of Chambers' apartment.
At 3:35 in the afternoon on January 22, 1979, Salameh and four bodyguards drove down the street in a Chevrolet station wagon. An agent watching from the apartment window pressed a button on a radio detonator.
The Volkswagen erupted. Salameh and all four bodyguards died instantly. Four passersby were also killed in the blast.
The Red Prince was finally dead—more than six years after Munich.
The Long Tail
The killings didn't end with Salameh. The operation continued sporadically for years, though the direct connection to Munich grew increasingly tenuous.
In December 1979, two Palestinians were shot at point-blank range with silenced weapons in Cyprus. In June 1982, two senior Palestine Liberation Organization figures were killed in Rome on the same day—one shot outside his home, another killed by a shrapnel bomb in his car less than seven hours after he had visited the first victim's house to assist police.
A month later, the deputy director of the Paris Palestine Liberation Organization office died when a bomb detonated in his vehicle. In August 1983, another official was shot from a motorcycle in Athens. In 1986, two more were killed in Athens—one shot four times in the head outside a hotel, another killed by a car bomb.
In February 1988, a car bomb in Limassol, Cyprus killed two Palestinians and wounded a third.
Reports suggest the operation continued for over twenty years after Munich, though precise attribution becomes difficult as time passes. Some killings may have been opportunistic rather than directly connected to the original list. Others may have been conducted by Palestinian factions themselves, disguised to look like Israeli operations, or by entirely different actors.
The One Who Got Away
For all the resources Mossad devoted to the campaign, they never killed the man most directly responsible for planning the Munich operation: Abu Daoud.
Abu Daoud openly admitted his role in Munich, publishing a memoir in 1999 that detailed his involvement. He was briefly detained in France in 1977, but released before Israel could arrange extradition. He survived several assassination attempts and died of natural causes in 2010, aged seventy-three.
His survival raises uncomfortable questions about the operation's effectiveness. Mossad killed dozens of people—some genuinely involved in terrorism, others whose connections were more ambiguous, and at least one who was entirely innocent. Yet the architect of Munich lived peacefully into old age.
The Legacy
What did Operation Wrath of God actually accomplish?
Israel claims it decimated Black September's leadership and deterred future attacks. The psychological impact on Palestinian militant organizations was certainly real—for years afterward, operatives lived in fear that any stranger could be a Mossad assassin.
Critics argue the operation was as much about politics as security. It satisfied the Israeli public's demand for action and established a precedent for extraterritorial assassination that Israel continues to employ today. Whether it actually reduced terrorism is impossible to quantify.
The civilian casualties—Bouchiki in Lillehammer, the passersby killed alongside Salameh in Beirut, potentially others in disputed cases—raised profound ethical questions. So did the targeting of individuals whose connection to Munich was unclear at best.
The operation has been depicted in two major films: the 1986 television movie Sword of Gideon and Steven Spielberg's 2005 film Munich, which explored the moral toll on the assassins themselves. Both took significant dramatic liberties, but they captured something essential about the operation's grim logic: violence begetting violence, an eye for an eye leaving the whole world blind—or at least, leaving everyone involved morally compromised.
Flowers and Condolences
Several hours before each assassination, each target's family received flowers with a card. "A reminder we do not forget or forgive."
It was cruel. It was theatrical. It was exactly what Golda Meir wanted. Not just death, but dread. Not just elimination, but a message that would echo for decades.
Whether that message was justice or revenge—or whether there's any meaningful difference—depends on where you stand. For the families of the eleven Israeli athletes killed in Munich, it may have provided some cold comfort. For the families of those killed in response—including the entirely innocent Ahmed Bouchiki—it was simply another chapter in an endless cycle of bloodshed.
The flowers kept coming. The bodies kept falling. And the conflict that spawned both Munich and its aftermath continues to this day.