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Coastal Road massacre

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Coastal Road massacre

The Coastal Road massacre occurred on 11 March 1978 when 11 PLO guerrillas killed 38 Israeli civilians and injured 71 more in the worst terrorist attack in Israeli history. Khalil al-Wazir sent a Palestinian commando under Dalal Mughrabi to take a boat from Lebanon to the Israeli coastline, and two Palestinian guerrillas drowned when one of the Zodiac boats capsized during a storm. The surviving eleven terrorists disembarked at the kibbutz Ma'agan Michael to the north of Tel Aviv, and Mughrabi shot American photographer Gail Rubin (Senator Abraham A. Ribicoff (D-CN)'s niece) on the beach after asking where they were. The attackers walked a mile to a four-lane highway, and they fired on passing cars before hijacking an Egged bus carrying vacationing bus drivers and their families. Israeli police cars trailed the hijacked bus, refraining from shooting out of fear of friendly fire, and police set up numerous roadblocks in attempts to stop the bus. The last roadblock used nails to puncture the bus' wheels, and the police broke the bus' windows and asked for the passengers to jump. The terrorists fired on the passengers as they tried to flee, and terrified Israeli policemen may have killed many hostages with their wild shooting. The firing drove some militants to commit suicide after killing as many civilians as possible, and Mughrabi detonated her grenades on the bus rather than be captured, causing an explosion. A total of 38 civilians (including 13 children) were killed in the attack, while 71 were wounded; 9 of the 11 perpetrators were killed, while Khaled Abu Asba and Hussein Fayyad were taken alive and were released in a prisoner exchange in 1985. The attack, which had been carried out by an Arab commando from South Lebanon, led to the Israeli invasion of South Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War.

Perpetrators[]

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