Israel admits killing Khalil Al-Wazir Abu-Jihad
SYYED MANSOOR AGHA analyses Israel’s admission of killing top ranking PLO leader Khalil Al-Wazir.
Barely a week before US poll for President (Nov 6), Israel chose to reveal that it had killed the top ranking PLO leader Khalil al-Wazir known as “Abu Jihad” (father of struggle against injustices) in Tunis in 1988. On the face of it the shameless revelation construed a veiled threat to the world leaders who are raising their voice against Israel’s brutality against Palestinian Arabs and defying world advice to mend its ways. In the US presidential elections, the Zionist lobby is active to oust Obama from White House.
Slain leader Al-Wazir, then 52, was deputy to Palestine Liberation Organisation leader Yasser Arafat at the time of his martyrdom. An Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot published the chilling report on November 1 after obtaining permission from Israel’s Military Censor. The report contains an interview with an Israeli commando who had pulled the trigger to shoot at and kill Al-Wazir. The interview was recorded at least 12 years ago. Two top leaders of Israel, Defence Minister Ehud Barak and Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon were part of the assassination squad. It may also be noted that elections in Israel are scheduled to be held on January 22 next year. Ehud Barak, the Defence Minister, who had commanded the mission to kill Al-Wazir, is considered a contender for the top post.
AP reported on November 2 from Jerusalem, “Israel acknowledged Thursday it killed Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s deputy in 1988 raid in Tunisia, lifting a nearly 25-year veil of secrecy and allowing a rare glimpse into the shadowy world of its secret operations.”
“Two of those involved in the operation now hold high political office in Israel – Defence Minister Ehud Barak and Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon. At the time, Barak was deputy military chief, and Yaalon was head of the elite commando unit Sayeret Matkal.”
From the day one Israel has been suspected of assassinating al-Wazir. But only now has the country’s military censor cleared the Yediot Ahronot daily to publish the information, including an interview with the commando who had killed him, at least 12 years after the newspaper obtained the information.
“I shot him with a long burst of fire. I was careful not to hurt his wife, who had showed up there. I shot him without hesitation. He died,” Commando Nahum Lev had told the paper. Lev died in a motorcycle accident in 2000.
Dozens of similar operations have been carried out by Israel since its illegitimate birth in 1948 but the Zionist regime rarely takes responsibility and typically does not comment on its covert operations. Israeli officials did not openly confirm the operation. But the “censor’s decision to allow publication, after years of stifling the account, amounted in effect to confirmation.”
The military censor’s blocks publication of material of any information that would expose agents, tactics and intelligence gathering methods or put anyone in dock. In the al-Wazir case, though, it appears that after years of rumours and reports exposing the operation, along with the death of the triggerman, the censor’s office decided to drop its objection to publication. Many of the details and identities of those involved still remain classified. The Yediot report, coupled with a more detailed account in the military affairs magazine Israel Defence, described a well-planned operation months in the making.
MOSSAD- MATKAL JOINT OPERATION
AP reported that “The operation was a joint effort by the Mossad secret service and the Sayeret Matkal. From a command post, on an Israeli boat commanded by Ehud Barak, in the Mediterranean Sea, 26 Israeli commandos reached the Tunisia’s shores on rubber boats. For months Mossad agents recce the area and prepared detailed plan for the operation. Lev, the commando was made psychologically prepared to kill Al-Wazir through feeding him about the role he was playing against Israel. Lev, approached his villa in the capital, Tunis, with another soldier, a man dressed as a woman. The two pretended to be a vacationing couple, with Lev carrying what appeared to be a large box of chocolates. Inside the box, however, was a gun fitted with a silencer.”
AP claimed that “According to Israel Defence, the fighter dressed as a woman carried a map and distracted the bodyguard by asking for directions, which allowed Lev to shoot him dead.” Israel had tested the disguise earlier at an Israeli mall, and after the “women” received random cat calls the outfit was deemed sufficient, it said.
The agents killed a bodyguard and a gardener before entering the expansive villa. Lev’s partner was the first to fire at the Palestinian leader. When Lev noticed al-Wazir reaching for a weapon, he shot and killed him. Other participants then “verified the kill” by shooting the body several more times before the forces retreated to sea and back to Israel, the Yediot report said.
OTHER SUSPECTED PLOTS
Israel is suspected of a series of many other plots. As the report says it has never confirmed or denied. Among the most prominent:
— In 1995, the founder of the Islamic Jihad group Fathi Shikaki was gunned down in Malta by a man on a motorcycle in an attack widely attributed to Israel.
— In 2008, Imad Mughniyeh, a top commander in the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, was killed by a bomb that ripped through his car in Damascus, Syria. Hezbollah and its primary patron, Iran, have blamed Israel for the killing.
— In 2010, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a top Hamas operative, was killed in a Dubai hotel room in an operation attributed to Israel’s Mossad.
Iran also claims Israel for covert plots against its nuclear programme and the killing of top scientists. In turn, Iran and Hezbollah have been blamed for various attacks on Israelis abroad.
EARLY LIFE AND TRONSFORMATION
Khalil Ibrahim al-Wazir was born in an ordinary Muslim family on Oct 10, 1935 in Ramle, Palestine, then under the jurisdiction of the British. His father, Ibrahim al-Wazir, worked as a grocer in the city. Khalil Al-Wazir became a refugee at the age of 13 in 1948 along with another 50,000–70,000 Palestinians from Lydda and Ramle, following Israel’s invasion to capture of the area and expand its illegal occupation of Palestine land. His family settled in the Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, where he joined a secondary school. In his high school, he began organising a small group of young “Fedayeen” to harass Israelis at military posts near the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula.
During his time in Gaza, al-Wazir became a member of the Ikhwanul Mulimoon (Muslim Brotherhood), and was briefly imprisoned for joining the organisation. In 1956, a few months after his release from prison, he received military training in Cairo. He also studied architectural engineering at the University of Alexandria, but he did not graduate. Al-Wazir was detained once again in 1957 in Egypt for his role in raids against Israel and was exiled to Saudi Arabia, finding work as a schoolteacher. He continued his job after moving to Kuwait in 1959. In 1950 he co-founded Fatah group in the leadership of Yasser Arafat.
During Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, al-Wazir prepared Beirut’s defence. Nonetheless, Israel prevailed and he was exiled from Lebanon with the rest of Fatah leadership. Al-Wazir settled down in Amman for a two-year period and was then exiled to Tunis in 1986. From there, he organised youth committees in the Palestinian territories; these eventually became the backbone of the Palestinian forces in the First Intifada. However, he did not live to command the uprising: on April 16, 1988, he was assassinated at his home in Tunis around 2 P.M. when he was 52, in the presence of his wife and son Nidal. Israel was bewildered by rising “Intifada”, which was planned by Al-Wazir. His assassination further fuelled the movement. He was buried in the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus on April 21. Arafat led the funeral procession.
ROLE OF EHUD BARAK
In 1997, the Maariv newspaper had reported that Ehud Barak led a seaborne command centre on a navy missile boat off the shore of Tunis that oversaw al-Wazir’s assassination. Up until November 1, 2012, Israel however did not take official responsibility for his killing. When approached for reactions on November 2, government spokesman Moshe Fogel and aides to Barak declined to comment.
According to the reports, Barak, who was then a deputy military chief, coordinated the planning by the Mossad, as well as the army’s intelligence branch, the air force, navy and the elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit. Mossad intelligence agents watched al-Wazir’s home for months before the raid. The Washington Post reported on April 21 that the Israeli cabinet approved al-Wazir’s assassination on April 13 and that it was coordinated between the Mossad and the IDF. The United States Department of State condemned his murder as an “act of political assassination”, and the UN Security Council approved Resolution 611 condemning “the aggression perpetrated against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Tunisia”, without specifically mentioning Israel.