Japanese Militant in 1972 Tel Aviv Airport Attack Dies in Lebanon at 78
Kozo Okamoto, a Japanese left-wing militant who survived a suicide mission at Tel Aviv's airport in 1972, has died in Lebanon at age 78.
Kozo Okamoto, the sole survivor of a 1972 suicide attack at Tel Aviv's Lod Airport (now Ben Gurion Airport) carried out by three members of the Japanese Red Army, has died in Lebanon at the age of 78. The attack was conducted in coordination with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The Japanese Red Army was a leftist militant group that allied itself with Palestinian armed movements. Okamoto was captured by Israeli authorities after the attack but later released in a prisoner exchange. He spent his subsequent years in Lebanon, where he remained involved in pro-Palestinian activism. His death closes a chapter on one of the most notorious international terrorist incidents of the early 1970s.
