Assassination of Rehavam Ze'evi
| Assassination of Rehavam Ze'evi | |
|---|---|
| Part of the Second Intifada militancy campaign | |
  The attack site
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| Location | Hyatt hotel, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem |
| Coordinates | 31°47′48″N 35°14′09″E / 31.79667°N 35.23583°E |
| Date | 17 October 2001 shortly before 7:00 am (GMT+2) |
| Target | Rehavam Ze'evi |
| Weapons | Pistol with silencer |
| Deaths | 1 killed (Rehavam Ze'evi) |
| Perpetrators | Three Palestinian assailants. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility. |
Rehavam Ze'evi, Israel's tourism minister, was assassinated at shortly before 7:00 am (GMT+2) on Wednesday, 17 October 2001, at the former Hyatt Hotel in Jerusalem by a squad of Palestinians assassins acting on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine militant organization. Ze'evi was the first Israeli minister to be assassinated since the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, and the most senior Israeli person to be killed by militants during the entire Arab–Israeli conflict.
Ze'evi's assassins were able to flee the scene of the crime. For a while they were hiding in the Mukataa compound in Ramallah, under the auspices of Yasser Arafat. Eventually, during Operation Defensive Shield in which Israeli forces sieged the Mukataa compound, an agreement was reached whereby Ze'evi's assassins were transferred to the Jericho prison under the supervision of British and American guards. After the Islamist militant organization Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections in January 2006, the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh publicly announced his intention to free Ze'evi's assassin squad members. On 14 March 2006, the American and British guards left the Jericho jail, charging that the Palestinian Authority was not sticking to the agreement reached with Israel four years earlier. As a result, Israel launched Operation Bringing Home the Goods on the same day in which the IDF captured Ze'evi's assassins. Consequently, Ze'evi's assassins were tried in Israel, convicted and received long prison terms.
In September 2001 the PFLP reached a decision to assassinate the Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Ze'evi in revenge for the targeted killing of the PFLP leader Abu Ali Mustafa by Israel in August 2001.
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