Munich massacre

The Munich massacre is an informal name for events that occurred during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Bavaria in southernWest Germany, when members of the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage and eventually killed by the Palestinian group Black September.

Members of Black September contended that Yasir Arafat’s Fatah organization secretly endorsed the operation. Fatah, however, disputed this. Black September called the operation “Ikrit and Biram”,after two ChristianPalestinian villages whose inhabitants were killed or expelled by the Haganah in 1948.

By the end of the ordeal, the kidnappers had killed eleven Israeli athletes and coaches and a West German police officer. Five of the eight members of Black September were killed by police officers during a failed rescue attempt. The three surviving kidnappers were captured, but later released by West Germany following the hijacking by Black September of a Lufthansa airliner. Israel responded to the killings with Operation Spring of Youth and Operation Wrath of God, during which Palestinians suspected of involvement in the massacre were systematically tracked down and killed by Israeli intelligence and special forces.