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Concept
Coastal Road massacre
Summary
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; 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children, were killed as a result of the attack while 76 more were wounded. The attack was planned by the influential Palestinian militant leader Abu Jihad and carried out by Fatah, a Palestinian nationalist party founded by Jihad in 1959. The initial plan of the militants was to seize a luxury hotel in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv and take tourists and foreign ambassadors hostage in order to exchange them for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody.
According to a Fatah commander who had helped to plan the attack, the timing was aimed primarily at scuppering Israeli–Egyptian peace talks between Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat and damaging Israel's tourism sector. However, due to a navigational error, the attackers ended up north of their target, and were forced to find an alternative method of transportation to their destination.
Time characterized it as "the worst terrorist attack in Israel's history." Fatah dubbed the hijacking "Operation of the Martyr Kamal Adwan" after the chief of operations of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), who was killed during the Israeli commando raid on Lebanon in April 1973. In response to the massacre, Israel launched Operation Litani against PLO bases in southern Lebanon three days later.
The PLO claimed responsibility for the attack, which was planned by influential Fatah leader Abu Jihad. The attack's purpose was to disrupt ongoing Israeli-Egyptian peace negotiations. Yasser Arafat and Abu Jihad feared that a truce between Israel and Egypt would be detrimental to their cause. The operation was considered to be of such importance that Abu Jihad, together with his operations commander for Lebanon Azmi Zair, personally briefed the participants.
Israel received intelligence of the planned attack from a Shin Bet source codenamed Housemaid, who met with Israeli military intelligence official Amos Gilad in a safehouse in Jerusalem and briefed him about the plans.
Official source
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