Suheila took out the gold, heart-shaped medallion she wears and showed me the images engraved on it — one side has an image of her son, Adnan, as a young man and the other side has an image of her brother, Ali. Ali was killed in 1972 during a hijacking operation; he was 34 years old. Following his death, Suheila worked tirelessly for two years before the Israeli authorities agreed to hand over his body so that she could give him a proper burial. Last night, in a neighborhood in East Jerusalem, she told me the entire story.
It was May 8, 1972, when four Palestinian fighters from the Black September resistance organization hijacked Sabena Belgian airline Flight 571 on its way to Tel Aviv. Suhaila’s brother, Ali Taha, was the commander of the team. The purpose of the operation was to demand the release of several hundred Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. Ali had participated in a similar operation several years earlier. In July 1968, an Israeli airliner was hijacked and made to land in Algeria. The
— source mintpressnews.com | Miko Peled | Jul 27, 2021