1980 Antwerp summer camp attack

1980 Antwerp summer camp attack
Location	Belgium
Date	28 July 1980
Target	Jewish civilians outside Agoudath Israel cultural centre
Attack type	Bombing
Weapon	Grenade
Deaths	1
Non-fatal injuries	20
Perpetrator	Said Al Nasr
Motive	Palestinian nationalism

Last updated March 02, 2019

In 1980 Antwerp summer camp attack, on 28 July 1980, Said Al Nasr, a Syria-born Palestinian, used grenades to attack a group of 40 Jewish children waiting with their families for a bus to take them to summer camp. One boy was killed and 20 other people were wounded in the attack. The attacker was caught.

Said Al Nasr was a Syrian Palestinian known for carrying out the 28 July 1980 Antwerp summer camp attack, in which he attacked a group of 40 Jewish children waiting with their families for a bus to take them to summer camp with hand grenades. One boy was killed and eight others were seriously wounded.

Palestinians in Syria are people of Palestinian origin, most of whom have been residing in Syria after they were expelled and displaced from their homeland during the 1948 Palestinian exodus. Palestinians hold most of the same rights as the Syrian population.

Grenade small bomb that can be thrown by hand

A grenade is a large explosive weapon typically thrown by hand, but can also refer to projectiles shot out of grenade launchers. Generally, a grenade consists of an explosive charge, a detonating mechanism, and firing pin inside the grenade to trigger the detonating mechanism. Once the soldier throws the grenade, the safety lever releases, the striker throws the safety lever away from the grenade body as it rotates to detonate the primer. The primer explodes and ignites the fuze. The fuze burns down to the detonator, which explodes the main charge.

Attack

The attack took place outside the Agoudath Israel cultural centre. The group of children, aged 10 to 14, originating from Britain, France, the Netherlands, Austria, and Belgium, were accompanied by their families as they waited to board a bus to take them to a summer camp in the Ardennes hills of southern Belgium.^[1] The explosion killed one boy, 15-year-old Parisian David Kuhan, and wounded 20, aged 8 to 27, eight of whom had to be hospitalized,^[1] including a 13-year-old Belgian girl with critical brain injuries and a pregnant woman.^[2] 2 young boys aged 8 and 9 respectively were walking past at the time of the attack and were wounded and hospitalised.

The United Kingdom, officially the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland but more commonly known as the UK or Britain, is a sovereign country lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state‍—‌the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south and the Celtic Sea to the south-west, giving it the 12th-longest coastline in the world. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland. With an area of 242,500 square kilometres (93,600 sq mi), the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world. It is also the 22nd-most populous country, with an estimated 66.0 million inhabitants in 2017.

France, officially the French Republic, is a country whose territory consists of metropolitan France in Western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The metropolitan area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is bordered by Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany to the northeast, Switzerland and Italy to the east, and Andorra and Spain to the south. The overseas territories include French Guiana in South America and several islands in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. The country's 18 integral regions span a combined area of 643,801 square kilometres (248,573 sq mi) and a total population of 67.3 million. France, a sovereign state, is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Other major urban areas include Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lille and Nice.

The Netherlands is a country located mainly in Northwestern Europe. The European portion of the Netherlands consists of twelve separate provinces that border Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, with maritime borders in the North Sea with Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom. Including three island territories in the Caribbean Sea—Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba— it forms a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The official language is Dutch, but a secondary official language in the province of Friesland is West Frisian.

The attacker was arrested after witnesses chased him down. In addition to the thrown grenades, he was carrying a pistol and "several magazines of ammunition" that had not used in the attack.^[2]

A magazine is an ammunition storage and feeding device within or attached to a repeating firearm. Magazines can be removable (detachable) or integral (internal/fixed) to the firearm. The magazine functions by moving the cartridges stored within it into a position where they may be loaded into the barrel chamber by the action of the firearm. The detachable magazine is often colloquially referred to as a clip, although this is technically inaccurate.

The attack was among a number of anti-Jewish attacks worldwide in the early 1980s.^[3]

Perpetrator

Al Nasr is a Syrian-Palestinian, was convicted in Belgium in 1980, for throwing two hand grenades into a group of Jewish children waiting for a bus in Antwerp on July 27, 1980.^[4] He was carrying a Moroccan passport at the time of his arrest.^[2]

Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Western Europe. It is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to the southwest, and the North Sea to the northwest. It covers an area of 30,688 square kilometres (11,849 sq mi) and has a population of more than 11.4 million. The capital and largest city is Brussels; other major cities are Antwerp, Ghent, Charleroi and Liège.

Jews or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and a nation, originating from the Israelites and Hebrews of historical Israel and Judah. Jewish ethnicity, nationhood, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish people, while its observance varies from strict observance to complete nonobservance.

Antwerp Municipality in Flemish Community, Belgium

Antwerp is a city in Belgium, and is the capital of Antwerp province in Flanders. With a population of 520,504, it is the most populous city proper in Belgium, and with 1,200,000 the second largest metropolitan region after Brussels.

In 1990, the jailed Al Nasr was "traded" for part of the Houtekins-Kets family, a Belgian-French family kidnapped in Libya—a demand of the Abu Nidal group—during the Silco incident.^[5]

Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa, bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad to the south, Niger to the southwest, Algeria to the west, and Tunisia to the northwest. The sovereign state is made of three historical regions: Tripolitania, Fezzan and Cyrenaica. With an area of almost 1.8 million square kilometres (700,000 sq mi), Libya is the fourth largest country in Africa, and is the 16th largest country in the world. Libya has the 10th-largest proven oil reserves of any country in the world. The largest city and capital, Tripoli, is located in western Libya and contains over one million of Libya's six million people. The second-largest city is Benghazi, which is located in eastern Libya.

Sabri Khalil al-Banna, known as Abu Nidal, was the founder of Fatah: The Revolutionary Council, a militant Palestinian splinter group more commonly known as the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO). At the height of its power in the 1970s and 1980s, the ANO was widely regarded as the most ruthless of the Palestinian groups.

The Silco incident involves the kidnapping of the Belgian-French family Houtekins-Kets by the Libyan government from their yacht Silco in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea on August 1, 1985.

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References

1 2 "Jewish youth dies in blast of grenade". The Globe and Mail. 28 July 1980. Retrieved 29 May 2016.
1 2 3 "Arab Held in Fatal Attack On Young Jews in Belgium". Washington Post. 28 July 1989. Retrieved 29 May 2016.
↑ "Jewish Targets: Recent Attacks: Chronology". New York Times. Associated Press. 7 September 1986. Retrieved 29 May 2016.
↑ Mickolus, Edward (1989). International Terrorism in the 1980s: 1980-1983. Iowa State University Press. p. 71.
↑ "FREED HOSTAGES 'IN BELGIAN HANDS' FAMILY HEADS HOME AFTER PALESTINIAN GUERRILLA LEAVES PRISON NEAR BRUSSELS". Orlando Sentinel. Reuters. 13 January 1991. Retrieved 29 May 2016.

1980 Antwerp summer camp attack

Contents

Attack

Perpetrator

Related Research Articles

References

Further reading