Palestine Liberation Front-Abu Abbas Faction

Unique Invasion Methods

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Abbas became famous for planning numerous unorthodox attacks on Israel, many of which were foiled. In 1979, a four-member PLF crew, carrying machine guns and shoulder-launched grenades, paddled a rubber dinghy from Lebanon to invade Israel via the Mediterranean Sea. According to press reports, the squad landed in the Israeli town of Nahariya and held a family hostage inside their home. They killed the father, his daughter, and a police officer, and injured four others.

Two years later, two PLF members left Lebanon in hang gliders, attempting to fly over the electronic [Page 459]fence at the border into the Haifa area of Israel. The PLF operatives were apparently planning to continue gliding for as far as possible and, once over the border, throw bombs and grenades from the air. Israeli forces captured the gliders at the border. In just over a month, Abbas's men attacked again by air, this time aboard a hot air balloon. As the floating balloon neared the Israeli border, the army shot it down. The two PLF operatives fell to their death.

As provocative and unconventional as these attacks were, international attention was only gained when PLF members hijacked a cruise ship. On October 8, 1985, off Port Said, Egypt, PLF members from the Abbas faction took control of the Achille Lauro cruise ship as it sailed toward Israel. They held hundreds of passengers hostage for two grueling days, during which the hijackers demanded the release of 50 Palestinians held in Israel and threatened to blow up the ship. As the ship sailed along the Syrian coast, the hijackers shot and killed a U.S. citizen, Leon Klinghoffer. The men then threw his body overboard.

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