Author Simon Reeve explains that the Mossad team – whose squad names are letters of the Hebrew alphabet – consisted of: It is also known that Mossad agent Michael Harari led the creation and direction of the teams, although some may not have always been under government responsibility. And therefore we tried not to do things by just shooting a guy in the street – that's easy. We wanted to make them look over their shoulders and feel that we are upon them. According to David Kimche, former deputy head of Mossad, "The aim was not so much revenge but mainly to make them frightened. In addition, the operations were more generally intended to terrorize Palestinian militants. Once this was complete, Mossad was charged with locating the individuals and killing them.Ĭritical in the planning was the idea of plausible deniability, that it should be impossible to prove a direct connection between the assassinations and Israel. While the contents of the entire list are unknown, reports put the final number of targets at 20–35, a mix of Black September and PLO elements. This was accomplished with the aid of PLO operatives working for Mossad, and with information provided by friendly European intelligence agencies. The committee's first task for Israeli intelligence was to draw up an assassination list of all those involved in Munich. Yet when the three surviving perpetrators of the massacre were released just months later by West Germany in compliance with the demands of the hijackers of Lufthansa Flight 615, any remaining ambivalence she felt was removed. Pressured by Israeli public opinion and top intelligence officials, Meir reluctantly authorized the beginning of the broad assassination campaign. The committee came to the conclusion that, to deter future violent incidents against Israel, they needed to assassinate those who had supported or carried out the Munich massacre, and in dramatic fashion. She also appointed General Aharon Yariv as her Advisor on Counterterrorism he, along with Mossad Director Zvi Zamir, took the principal role in directing the ensuing operation. Prime Minister Golda Meir created Committee X, a small group of government officials tasked with formulating an Israeli response, with herself and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan at the head. Two days after the Munich massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics, Israel retaliated by bombing ten PLO bases in Syria and Lebanon. The operation was depicted in the television film Sword of Gideon (1986) and Steven Spielberg's film Munich (2005). While Mossad killed several prominent Palestinians during the operation, they never managed to kill the mastemind behind Munich, namely Abu Daoud. Authorized by Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in the autumn of 1972, the operation is believed to have continued for over twenty years. The targets were members of the Palestinian armed militant group Black September and operatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Operation Bayonet ( Hebrew: מבצע זעם האל, romanized: Mivtza Za'am Ha'el, lit.' Operation Wrath of God') was a covert operation directed by Mossad to assassinate individuals they accused of being involved in the 1972 Munich massacre. 1972 Israeli air raid in Syria and Lebanon.
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