Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine

In 1969, after a power struggle with his leader George Habash, Nayef Hawatmeh left the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). He and other left-wing PFLP members split to form the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine [Page 157](DFLP), a marginal group that has nonetheless made multiple small attacks on Israeli targets.

The DFLP began as a Marxist-Leninist organization with the goal of creating an independent Palestinian state though a revolution of the masses. The group cultivated relationships with radical organizations and Communist parties in the Middle East. It committed its most notorious act of terror in 1974, when members attacked a school in Maalot, a town in northern Israel, and killed 20 teenagers. In 1983 the group kidnapped Sergeant Samir Assad, an Israeli soldier. Press reports later delighted in reporting that a female DFLP member had caught Assad in a “honey trap,” courting him for several months until he visited her village and was taken hostage. Assad was later killed. Democratic Front members declared that he died during Israeli Air Force bombings at their base, but Israeli army pathologists reported that he had been murdered by his captors. Assad's corpse was returned to Israel eight years after he was kidnapped in return for the release of a DFLP activist. In 1991 the group split into two groups, creating a pro-Arafat faction and Hawatmeh's more radical faction.

The Democratic Front is a longtime critic of the peace process with Israel, but since Yasir Arafat signed the 1993 Oslo Accords, the group has positioned itself politically between Arafat's Fatah and more radical, rejectionist groups like Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad. Unlike fellow Palestinian guerrilla movements, including the PFLP, Ahmad Jibril's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, and Abu Abbas's Palestine Liberation Front, the Democratic Front was not listed as an active foreign terrorist group by the U.S. State Department in its 2010 global terrorism report.

In August 2001, the group resurfaced in world headlines when members claimed responsibility for an attack on a Gaza base that killed three Israeli soldiers. Israeli officials, however, cast doubt on the claim and suggested that members of Arafat's Fatah organization were behind the raid. After the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., an Abu Dhabi television station reported receiving a call from the Democratic Front claiming responsibility for the massacre. However, DFLP leaders denied any involvement and condemned the acts of terror. The United States later charged Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda operatives with responsibly for the attacks.

In February 2002, five Democratic Front members were killed when their car exploded in the Gaza Strip. Palestinian security officials told the press that Israeli helicopters had fired missiles at the vehicle; Israeli officials did not comment on the Gaza explosion. The press reported that pieces of Kalashnikov rifles had been found with the men's bodies. The Democratic Front vowed retaliation for the deaths.

As relations between Fatah and Hamas have deteriorated, with Hamas taking over the Gaza Strip in 2006, the DFLP has attempted to broker peace between the two Palestinian groups, arguing that the division hurts Palestinians. At the same time, the Democratic Front has repeatedly attacked Israeli targets, including firing rockets at Israeli settlements and army posts.

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