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Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP; Arabic: الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين, romanized: al-Jabha ash-Shaʿbīyya li-Taḥrīr Filasṭīn[3]) is a secular Palestinian Marxist–Leninist and revolutionary socialist organization founded in 1967 by George Habash. It has consistently been the second-largest of the groups forming the Palestine Liberation Organization, the largest being Fatah.

"PFLP" redirects here. For other meanings, see PFLP (disambiguation).

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين

Ahmad Sa'adat
(imprisoned)

Jamil Mezher

George Habash

1967 (1967)

Damascus, Syria

Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades

Far-left

Palestine Liberation Organization
Democratic Alliance List

International Communist Seminar (defunct)
Axis of Resistance

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Ahmad Sa'adat, who was sentenced in 2006 to 30 years in an Israeli prison, has served as General Secretary of the PFLP since 2001. The PFLP currently considers both the Fatah-led government in the West Bank and the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip illegal because elections to the Palestinian National Authority have not been held since 2006.[4] As of 2015, the PFLP boycotts participation in the PLO Executive Committee[5][6][7] and the Palestinian National Council.[8]


The PFLP has generally taken a hard-line on Palestinian national aspirations, opposing the more moderate stance of Fatah. It does not recognize Israel, and promotes a one-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, in a "democratic Palestine", where "Arabs and Jews would live without discrimination". The military wing of the PFLP is called the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades.


The PFLP is well known for pioneering armed aircraft-hijackings in the late 1960s and early 1970s.[9] According to PFLP Politburo member[10] and former aircraft-hijacker Leila Khaled, the PFLP does not see suicide bombing as a form of resistance to occupation or as a strategic action or policy and no longer carries out such attacks. The PFLP has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States,[11] Japan,[12] Canada,[13] and the European Union.[14]

The from Rome to Lod airport in Israel on 23 July 1968.[30] The Western media reported that the flight was targeted because the PFLP believed Israeli general Yitzhak Rabin, who was Israeli ambassador to the US, was on board. Several individuals involved with the hijacking, including Leila Khaled deny this. The plane was diverted to Algiers, where 21 passengers and 11 crew members were held for 39 days, until 31 August.

hijacking of El Al Flight 426

Gunmen in Athens about to take off for New York on 26 December 1968, killing one Israeli – this prompted a reprisal by Israel destroying airliners in Beirut.

opened fire on El Al Flight 253

An passengers jet at Zürich airport on 18 February 1969, killing the co-pilot and wounding the pilot; an Israeli undercover agent thwarted the hijacking after killing the terrorist leader.

attack on El Al Flight 432

Bombings by and other PFLP members killed 21-year-old Leon Kanner of Netanya and 22-year-old Eddie Joffe on 21 February 1969.[31][32][33] The two were killed by a bomb placed in a crowded Jerusalem SuperSol supermarket which the two students stopped in at to buy groceries for a field trip.[34][35] The same bomb wounded 9 others.[36] A second bomb was found at the supermarket, and defused.[32] Odeh was also convicted of bombing and damaging the British Consulate four days later.[37][38][39][40] In 1980, Odeh was among 78 prisoners released by Israel in an exchange with the PFLP for one Israeli soldier captured in Lebanon.[31][34][35]

Rasmea Odeh

The from Los Angeles to Damascus on 29 August 1969 by a PFLP cell led by Leila Khaled, who became the PFLP's most noted recruit. Two Israeli passengers were held for 44 days.

hijacking of TWA Flight 840

Three adult Palestinians and three boys aged 14 and 15 years old threw at the Israeli embassies in The Hague, Bonn and the El Al office in Brussels on the same day, 9 September 1969 with no casualties.

grenades

Attack on a bus containing El Al passengers at airport, killing one passenger and wounding 11 on 10 February 1970.

Munich

On 6 September 1970, the PFLP, including Leila Khaled, from Pan Am, TWA and Swissair on flights to New York from Brussels, Frankfurt and Zürich, and failed in an attempt to hijack an El Al aircraft which landed safely in London after one hijacker was killed and the other overpowered; and on 9 September 1970, hijacked a BOAC flight from Bahrain to London via Beirut. The Pan Am flight was diverted to Cairo; the TWA, Swissair and BOAC flights were diverted to Dawson's Field in Zarqa, Jordan. The TWA, Swissair and BOAC aircraft were subsequently blown up by the PFLP on 12 September, in front of the world media, after all passengers had been taken off the planes. The event is significant, as it was cited as a reason for the Black September clashes between Palestinian and Jordanian forces.

hijacked four passenger aircraft

On 30 May 1972, at Ben Gurion International Airport by members of the Japanese Red Army in collaboration with the PFLP's Waddie Haddad in what became known as the Lod Airport massacre. Haddad had been ordered to stop planning operations, and ordered the attack without the PFLP's knowledge.

28 passengers were gunned down

On 13 October 1977, the PFLP , a Boeing 737 flying from Palma de Mallorca to Frankfurt. After various stopovers the pilot was killed. The remaining passengers and crew were eventually rescued by German counter-terrorism special forces.

hijacked Lufthansa Flight 181

On 12 April 1984 a . Bassam Abu Sharif in Damascus issued a statement in the name of the PFLP claiming responsibility.[41]

bus from Tel Aviv was hijacked

Arab Socialist Action Party

List of political parties in the State of Palestine

Palestinian domestic weapons production

Mohamed Boudia

Carlos the Jackal

Revolutionare Zellen

Blekingegade Gang

Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine

Archived 15 June 2010 at the Wayback Machine, PLO 75 Archived 15 June 2010 at the Wayback Machine, PLO 75 Archived 15 June 2010 at the Wayback Machine Secret documents regarding 1974 cooperation between the KGB and the PFLP against Israel and arming PFLP – (in Russian) from the Soviet Archives V.Bukovsky, Soviet Archive collected by Vladimir Bukovsky

PLO 75

PFLP website in Arabic

in Leila S. Kadi, Basic Political Documents of the Armed Palestinian Resistance Movement, 1969.

Documents of the PFLP

- Fight Back! News, Summer 2003

Interview with imprisoned PFLP General Secretary Ahmad Saadat