30 May 1972; 51 years ago (1972-05-30) 12:04 – 12:28
Attack type
Shooting spree
Weapons
Assault rifles and grenades
Deaths
26 (+2 attackers)
Injured
80 (+1 attacker)
Perpetrators
Japanese Red Army (guided by PFLP-EO)
No. of participants
3
v
t
e
Palestinian insurgency in South Lebanon
Engagements
El Al Flight 426 hijacking
El Al Flight 253 attack
retaliation raid
El Al Flight 432 attack
TWA Flight 840 hijacking (1969)
Avivim school bus bombing
Lod Airport massacre
Sabena Flight 571
1972 air raid
Kiryat Shmona massacre
Ma'alot massacre
1974 Nahariya attack
Savoy Hotel attack
Kfar Yuval hostage crisis
Coastal Road massacre
1978 South Lebanon conflict
1979 Ma'alot attack
1979 Nahariya attack
Misgav Am hostage crisis
1981 bombing of Lebanon
1982 Lebanon War
siege of Beirut
International incidents
Munich massacre
Operation Wrath of God
1972 raid
Israeli Bangkok Embassy hostage crisis
1973 raid
Sabena Flight 571 hijacking
Attack on the Saudi Embassy in Khartoum
1973 New York City bomb plot
1973 Athens Hellinikon International Airport attack
TWA Flight 841 (1974)
Pan Am Flight 110
Operation Entebbe
The Lod Airport massacre[1][2] was a terrorist attack that occurred on 30 May 1972. Three members of the Japanese Red Army recruited by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – External Operations (PFLP-EO),[2][3] attacked Lod Airport (now Ben Gurion International Airport) near Tel Aviv, killing 26 people and injuring 80 others.[4] Two of the attackers were killed, while a third, Kōzō Okamoto, was captured after being wounded.
The dead comprised 17 Christian pilgrims from Puerto Rico, a Canadian citizen, and eight Israelis, including Professor Aharon Katzir, an internationally renowned protein biophysicist. Katzir was head of the Israeli National Academy of Sciences, a popular scientific radio show host, and a candidate in the upcoming Israeli presidential election. His brother, Ephraim Katzir, was elected President of Israel the following year.
Because airport security was focused on the possibility of a Palestinian attack, the use of Japanese attackers took the guards by surprise. The attack has often been described as a suicide mission, but it has also been asserted that it was the outcome of an unpublicized larger operation that went awry. The three perpetrators—Kōzō Okamoto, Tsuyoshi Okudaira, and Yasuyuki Yasuda—had been trained in Baalbek, Lebanon; the actual planning was handled by Wadie Haddad (a.k.a. Abu Hani), head of PFLP External Operations, with some input from Okamoto.[5] In the immediate aftermath, Der Spiegel speculated that funding had been provided by some of the $5 million ransom paid by the West German government in exchange for the hostages of hijacked Lufthansa Flight 649 in February 1972.[6]
^
"The short-term impact of the Lod Airport massacre as a precursor to Munich..." Stephen Sloan, John C. Bersia, J. B. Hill. Terrorism: The Present Threat in Context, Berg Publisher, 2006, p. 50. ISBN 1-84520-344-5.
"Two years later, just before the Lod Airport massacre, authorities uncovered the bodies of 14 young men and women on remote Mount Haruna, 70 miles northwest of Tokyo." "Again the Red Army", TIME, 18 August 1975.
"Those named by Lebanese officials as having been arrested included at least three Red Army members who have been wanted for years by Japanese authorities, most notably Kōzō Okamoto, 49, the only member of the attacking group who survived the Lod Airport massacre." "Lebanon Seizes Japanese Radicals Sought in Terror Attacks" Archived 24 February 2021 at the Wayback Machine, The New York Times, 19 February 1997.
^ ab"They were responsible for the Lod Airport massacre in Israel in 1972, which was committed on behalf of the PFLP." Jeffrey D. Simon, The Terrorist Trap: America's Experience with Terrorism, Indiana University Press, p. 324. ISBN 0-253-21477-7
^"This Week in History". 24 July 2012. Archived from the original on 2 July 2012. Retrieved 24 July 2012. The assailants, members of communist group the Japanese Red Army (JRA), were enlisted by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP),
^"In what became known as the Lod Airport Massacre, three members of the terrorist group, Japanese Red Army, arrived at the airport aboard Air France Flight 132 from Rome. Once inside the airport they grabbed automatic firearms from their carry-on cases and fired at airport staff and visitors. In the end, 26 people died and 80 people were injured." CBC News, The Fifth Estate, "Fasten Your Seatbelts: Ben Gurion Airport in Israel", 2007. Retrieved 2 June 2008.
^Cite error: The named reference neojaponisme was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^"Weißer Kreis". Der Spiegel (in German): 82–85. 5 June 1972. Archived from the original on 21 March 2014. Retrieved 29 August 2013.
and 27 Related for: Lod Airport massacre information
The LodAirportmassacre was a terrorist attack that occurred on 30 May 1972. Three members of the Japanese Red Army recruited by the Popular Front for...
group Japanese Red Army (JRA). He was killed carrying out the LodAirportMassacre near Lod, Israel on May 30, 1972. At the time of his death, he was married...
Muammar Gaddafi's Libya, as well as Syria and North Korea. After the LodAirportmassacre, it sometimes called itself the Arab-JRA. The group was also variously...
of Israel. Situated on the northern outskirts of the city of Lod, it is the busiest airport in the country. It is located 45 kilometres (28 mi) to the northwest...
their instructions, Captain Levy landed the plane at LodAirport (later Ben Gurion International Airport). The hijackers demanded that Israel release Palestinian...
Federal Police, which was founded as a result of the massacre Israeli casualties of war LodAirportmassacre One minute of silence Palestinian political violence...
popularly called the Lod Airportmassacre, at the LodAirport, now known as the Ben Gurion International Airport, in Lod. Firing indiscriminately with...
what became known as the LodAirportMassacre three members of the terrorist group, Japanese Red Army, arrived at the airport aboard Air France Flight...
which Israel claimed was in response for the group's role in the LodAirportmassacre, but Kanafani's assassination may have been planned long before....
used by the PFLP to fund the Japanese attackers responsible for the LodAirportmassacre, which took place on 30 May 1972. The hijacking of Lufthansa Flight...
The Coastal Road massacre occurred on 11 March 1978, when Palestinian militants hijacked a bus on the Coastal Highway of Israel and murdered its occupants;...
Israel in the raid. Uganda killed 245 Kenyans, including airport staff at Entebbe. To avoid massacre, approximately 3,000 Kenyans fled Uganda as refugees...
labor camps in German-occupied Poland with their inhabitants massacred, such as the Wola Massacre, or deported to extermination camps for fear of additional...
International Airport by members of the Japanese Red Army in collaboration with the PFLP's Waddie Haddad in what became known as the LodAirportmassacre. Haddad...
Khaled was invited to a ceremony for the 40th anniversary of the LodAirportmassacre by a Japanese far-left group in Kyoto, at which Panta performed the...
The Ardeatine massacre, or Fosse Ardeatine massacre (Italian: Eccidio delle Fosse Ardeatine), was a mass killing of 335 civilians and political prisoners...
documented of the massacres took place on 29–30 September 1941, in which some 33,771 Jews were murdered. Other victims of massacres at the site included...
aircraft left the U.S. from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, arriving at LodAirport in Tel Aviv, with his family onboard.[citation needed] Alon is buried...
The Rumbula massacre is a collective term for incidents on November 30 and December 8, 1941, in which about 25,000 Jews were murdered in or on the way...
out many attacks and assassinations in the 1970s, including the LodAirportmassacre in Tel Aviv three years earlier. Starting from the early 1990s, Kuala...
international terrorism that lasted well into the 1980s, beginning with the LodAirportMassacre in 1972. Meanwhile, the United Red Army retreated into the mountains...
exclude from their work "suicidal" or high risk attacks, such as the LodAirportmassacre or "reckless charge in battle", focusing only on true "suicide attacks"...
The Strasbourg massacre occurred on 14 February 1349, when the entire Jewish community of several thousand Jews were publicly burnt to death as part of...
school bus bombing (1970) Munich massacre (1972) LodAirportmassacre (1972) Ma'alot massacre (1974) Kiryat Shmona massacre (1974) Ben Yehuda Street bombing...
Flight 330 (SR330/SWR330) was a regularly scheduled flight from Zurich Airport in Kloten, Switzerland, to Hong Kong with a planned stopover in Tel Aviv...
The Odessa massacre was the mass murder of the Jewish population of Odessa and surrounding towns in the Transnistria Governorate during the autumn of 1941...