Rejectionist elements within the PLO renew their…
October 1985 CE
Rejectionist elements within the PLO renew their activities, attracting worldwide attention, as violent terror attacks begin to escalate in the mid-1980s.
On October 7, 1985, four heavily armed members of the Palestine Liberation Front, a small faction within the PLO that had split from the PFLP-GC in the mid-1970s and is headed by Abul Abbas, hijack an Italian cruise ship, the Achille Lauro, carrying more than four hundred passengers.
The hijackers demand that Israel free fifty Palestinian prisoners.
The terrorists kill a disabled American tourist, sixty-nine-year-old Leon Klinghoffer, and throw his body overboard with his wheelchair.
Counter-terrorist units from the U.S respond, including elements of Delta Force and SEAL Team Six; however, the situation is resolved before an assault becomes necessary.
