Israeli security forces nearly blew up a plane carrying 30 injured children by mistake during a decades-long attempt to assassinate Yasser Arafat, it has been claimed.
Fighter pilots are said to have asked permission to bring down a flight over the Mediterranean on October 23, 1982, believing that the late Palestinian leader was on board.
But the mission was called off as it emerged that the aircraft was carrying wounded Palestinian youngsters on their way from Athens to receive medical treatment in Egypt – and that they were accompanied by Arafat’s lookalike younger brother.
The claims have been made in a book which alleges that former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon ordered the military to shoot down civilian airliners while he was minister of defence in the hope of killing Arafat.
Israeli security forces nearly blew up a plane carrying 30 injured children by mistake as part of a series of failed attempts to assassinate Yasser Arafat, it has been claimed. The Palestinian leader is pictured in 1970
Fighter pilots are said to have asked permission to gun down a flight over the Mediterranean on October 23, 1982, believing that the late Palestinian leader was on board. He is pictured, centre, in Beirut just two months before the alleged incident
In an article in the New York Times, adapted from the book, journalist Ronen Bergman said that in just nine weeks between November 1982 and 1983, fighter jets were scrambled ‘at least five times’ to blow up commercial planes.
But on each occasion, the raids were called off shortly after take off.
Bergman said that when Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad reported that Arafat was taking more commercial flights ‘Sharon decided that such flights would be legitimate targets’.
However, senior air force commanders obstructed the operations intentionally with some of them considering the orders to be illegal.
One, air force operations chief Aviem Sella, told Bergman how he tried to stop an assassination attempt in a conversation with chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces, Lt Gen Rafael Eitan.
He is said to have told Eitan: ‘We do not intend to carry this out. It simply will not happen. I understand that the minister of defence is dominant here.
The claims have been made in a book which alleges that former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon (pictured in 1982) ordered the military to shoot down civilian airliners while he was minister of defence in the hope of killing Arafat
Bergman said that when Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad reported that Arafat was taking more commercial flights ‘Sharon decided that such flights would be legitimate targets’. The former Israeli prime minister is pictured in 2005
‘No one dares to stand up to him, and therefore we will make it technically impossible.’
Another, former brigadier general Amos Gilboa, claimed he warned Eitan such an operation could ‘ruin the state internationally if it were known that we downed a civilian airliner’.
In his book, ‘Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations’, Bergman says there were other plans to kill Arafat.
He said Israelis spent months trying to brainwash a Palestinian into becoming a ‘programmed killer’ – only for him to hand himself in to police five hours after being released to carry out his operation.
Another failed attempt saw special forces following three Israeli journalists who were in Lebanon to interview Arafat.
Palistinian leader Yasser Arafat (pictured) died in 2004 at the age of 75
But their plan faltered when Arafat became suspicious and ordered his security guards to take ‘deceptive countermeasures’. The Israeli operatives promptly lost track of the reporters before they could bomb the meeting.
Another plan was to take out all of the main players in the Palestinian Liberation Organisation by setting up bombs inside a Beirut stadium, it is claimed.
The book suggests leaders were due to gather to celebrate the anniversary of their first operation against Israel.
But the bombing was cancelled at the last minute when a group of Israeli officers demanded that it be aborted, telling senior command: ‘You can’t just kill a whole stadium.’
Bergman examines the task force – at first codenamed Operation Salt Fish and then Operation Goldfish – that was set up to assassinate the Palistinian leader, who died in 2004 at the age of 75.
But despite trying for decades, Arafat managed to elude Israeli forces.
Bergman wrote: ‘Arafat understood that it was not a coincidence that bombs were repeatedly falling on places he was about to enter or had just left, and he kept breaking his routine.’