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Afif Ahmed Hamid (d. 5 September 1972) was a Palestinian militant and one of eight Black September members that invaded the Israeli quarters at the Munich Olympic Village during the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, taking hostage nine members of the Israeli Olympic delegation after killing Israeli wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg and weightlifter Yossef Romano in the initial takeover.
Like several of the younger fedayeen involved in the Munich operation, Hamid had grown up in the Chatila refugee camp in Lebanon. He joined Fatah in 1968 and became familiar with Germany, living and studying there for over a year, before returning to Lebanon in 1971. [1]
Such was the secrecy behind the operation that Hamid told his family that he was returning to Germany for different reasons. He told his mother that he was going back to Germany to study, and that he would be there for approximately two and a half months. [2]
Upon arriving in one of the two helicopters with his fellow fedayeen and the Israeli athletes at Fürstenfeldbruck Air Base, the militants became embroiled in a firefight with five German police sharpshooters positioned around the airfield, who fired upon them. It would appear that Hamid was killed in the initial stages of the firefight. In photographs taken after the event, Hamid can be seen lying facedown on the tarmac, a large pool of blood surrounding his body. Mortuary photographs show his face with bullet wounds, as well as a knife wound on the bridge of his nose, received from hostage Yossef Romano.[ citation needed ]
Hamid's body and those of his four fedayeen compatriots were handed over to Libya and after a procession of 30,000 people from Tripoli's Martyrs' Square, they were buried at the Sidi Munaidess Cemetery. [3]
The Munich massacre was a terrorist attack carried out during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, by eight members of the Palestinian militant organization Black September, who infiltrated the Olympic Village, killed two members of the Israeli Olympic team, and took nine others hostage. Black September called the operation "Iqrit and Biram", after two Palestinian Christian villages whose inhabitants were expelled by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The Black September commander was Luttif Afif, who was also their negotiator. West German neo-Nazis gave the group logistical assistance.
The Black September Organization (BSO) was a Palestinian militant organization founded in 1970. Besides other actions, the group was responsible for the assassination of the Jordanian Prime Minister Wasfi Tal, and the Munich massacre, in which eleven Israeli athletes and officials were kidnapped and killed, as well as a West German policeman losing his life, during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, their most publicized event. These attacks led to the creation or specialization of permanent counter-terrorism forces in many European countries.
Operation Bayonet was a covert operation directed by Mossad to assassinate individuals they accused of being involved in the 1972 Munich massacre. The targets were members of the Palestinian armed militant group Black September and operatives of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). Authorised by Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in the autumn of 1972, the operation is believed to have continued for over twenty years. While Mossad killed several prominent Palestinians during the operation, they never managed to kill the mastermind behind Munich, namely Abu Daoud.
Jamal Al-Gashey is a Palestinian militant who was a member of the Black September offshoot of the Palestine Liberation Organization and one of eight militants who carried out the massacre of eleven Israeli athletes during the 1972 Summer Olympics. He is visible several times in videos of the event, identifiable by his blue- and white-striped jacket. During the failed rescue attempt by Bavarian border guards and Munich police, which resulted in the deaths of nine hostages and five of the Black September militants, Al-Gashey was shot in the wrist attempting to aid a fellow Black September member.
Luttif Afif was a Palestinian terrorist. He commanded the eight-member attack team that carried out the Munich massacre, an invasion of the Munich Olympic Village on 5 September 1972. During the incident, nine members of Israel's Olympic team were taken hostage after two others, who had offered resistance, were shot dead. Afif was the chief negotiator on behalf of the Palestinians, who were members of the Black September offshoot of Yassir Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization. Afif and four of his compatriots were later killed by German snipers at Fürstenfeldbruck air base outside Munich.
Andre Spitzer was an Israeli fencing master and coach of Israel's 1972 Summer Olympics team. He was one of 11 athletes and coaches taken hostage and subsequently killed by terrorists in the Munich massacre.
Gad Tsobari is an Israeli-born light-flyweight freestyle wrestler and a member of Israel's 1972 Olympic team. He finished 12th in his event, and was considered a possible medal threat at the Montreal Games of 1976.
Amitzur Shapira was an Israeli sprinter and long jumper. He was head coach for the Israeli track and field team at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany. He was murdered by Palestinian terrorists in the Munich massacre.
Moshe Weinberg was an Israeli wrestler who was the coach of the national team, as well the coach of Hapoel Tel Aviv.
Yossef Romano, also known as Joseph Romano or Yossi Romano, was a Libyan-born Israeli weightlifter with the Israeli team that went to the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany. He was the second of eleven Israeli team members killed in the Munich massacre by Palestinian members of Black September during that Olympics. He was the Israeli weight-lifting champion in the light and middle-weight divisions for nine years.
Yossef Gutfreund was an Israeli wrestling judge for his country's 1972 Olympic team. He was murdered in the Munich massacre by Black September terrorists along with 10 other members of the Israeli team.
Mark Slavin was an Israeli Olympic Greco-Roman wrestler and victim of the Munich massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics.
Events in the year 1972 in Israel.
The Israeli Bangkok embassy hostage crisis occurred on 28 December 1972. It was a raid by a squad of four Palestinian militants, belonging to the Black September organization, on the Israeli embassy building in Bangkok in which the militants held six Israeli embassy staff hostage. After 19 hours of negotiations, the hijackers agreed to abandon the embassy in exchange for being flown to Egypt. The raid was one of a number of attacks that have been conducted against Israeli embassies and diplomats.
Yusuf Nazzal was the second-in-command of eight members of the Palestinian Black September Organisation that invaded 31 Connollystraße in the Munich Olympic Village on 5 September 1972, and took nine members of the Israeli Olympic team hostage after two members, weightlifter Yossef Romano and wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg, were killed in the initial takeover. Television images broadcast during the hostage crisis show Nazzal frequently, seemingly always smoking, wearing sunglasses, an open-neck red shirt, and a cowboy hat, which led him to be identified as the 'Cowboy'. According to author Serge Groussard, Nazzal "liked to be called Guevara".
Khalid Jawad was a Palestinian militant and one of eight Black September militants that invaded the Israeli quarters at the Munich Olympic Village during the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, taking hostage nine members of the Israeli Olympic delegation after killing Israeli wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg and weightlifter Yossef Romano in the initial takeover. It has been suggested that Jawad was wearing the ski mask featured in images that became iconic of this atrocity.
Adnan Al-Gashey was a Palestinian militant and one of eight Black September Organization militants who invaded the Israeli quarters at the Munich Olympic Village during the 1972 Summer Olympics. The group took hostage nine of the Israeli Olympic delegation after killing Israeli wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg and weightlifter Yossef Romano in the initial takeover. He was the uncle of Jamal Al-Gashey, who also took part in the Munich operation.
Mohammed Safady is a Palestinian militant and one of eight Black September militant who perpetrated the Munich massacre, in which they invaded the Israeli quarters at the Munich Olympic Village during the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, taking hostage nine of the Israeli Olympic delegation after killing Israeli wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg and weightlifter Yossef Romano in the initial takeover.
Anneliese Graes was a chief detective (1951–1991) from Essen, Germany, who acted as mediator between German officials and Black September terrorists during the 1972 Munich Olympic Games after eight Black September terrorists broke into the Israeli Olympic delegation building at 31 Connollystrasse, taking eleven of the Israeli delegation hostage during the early hours of 5 September 1972.
Klaus Bechler is a former German helicopter engineer of the West German Border Guard (Bundesgrenzschutz) who volunteered to transport eight Black September terrorists and their nine Israeli hostages from the Munich Olympic Village to Fürstenfeldbruck Air Base in what became known as the Munich Massacre. He is one of the few survivors of the event.