Assassination of Khalil al-Wazir

Khalil Ibrahim al-Wazir, known by his kunya Abu Jihad, was a Palestinian leader and co-founder of Fatah who served as a top aide to PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and commanded Fatah's armed wing, al-Assifa. Born in Ramla in 1935, al-Wazir became a refugee after his family was expelled during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and settled in the Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. Over subsequent decades he held senior military and political roles within Fatah and the PLO, including organizing arms supplies during the 1970–71 Black September clashes in Jordan and helping direct Beirut's defense during Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon. After the PLO's expulsion from Lebanon, al-Wazir was based in Amman and later, from 1986, in Tunis, where he organized youth committees in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that became a major component of the First Intifada, which began in December 1987.

The Israeli government decided to assassinate him after the outbreak of the Intifada, accusing him of escalating its violence; the March 1988 Mothers' Bus attack, believed to have been organized by al-Wazir, was cited as a major catalyst. The Israeli security cabinet under Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir met on 14 March 1988 and approved the assassination by a vote of 6 to 4, according to an account by Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman in his book "Rise and Kill First." The Washington Post reported that the cabinet's approval came on 13 April. The operation, codenamed "Operation Introductory Lesson," was planned by Mossad over more than a year and involved a naval flotilla, Sayeret Matkal and Shayetet 13 commandos, and Israeli Air Force support, with IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Ehud Barak in overall command.

On the night of 15–16 April 1988, commandos landed by sea near Tunis, were driven to al-Wazir's neighborhood by waiting Mossad operatives, and stormed his home. Two bodyguards and the family's gardener were killed, and al-Wazir himself was shot dozens of times inside the house; accounts of the exact circumstances and number of shots vary. The entire raid reportedly lasted about five minutes before the commandos evacuated by sea.

Al-Wazir's assassination triggered immediate riots in the Palestinian territories, during which at least a dozen Palestinians were shot dead — described as the worst violence since the Intifada began. He was buried in the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus on 21 April 1988, with Arafat leading the funeral procession. The United States Department of State condemned the killing as an "act of political assassination," and the UN Security Council approved Resolution 611 condemning the action against Tunisia's sovereignty without naming Israel directly. Israel did not officially acknowledge responsibility until 2012, when a previously censored interview conducted by Ronen Bergman with one of the raid's commanders, Nahum Lev, was cleared for publication.