Israel's decades-long covert assassination campaign targeting those responsible for the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre set a precedent for state-sponsored targeted killings.
Key Facts
- Authorization
- Authorized by Israeli PM Golda Meir, autumn 1972
- Conducting agency
- Mossad
- Primary targets
- Black September members and PLO operatives
- Estimated duration
- Over 20 years
- Notable failure
- Mastermind Abu Daoud was never killed
- Notable depictions
- Sword of Gideon (1986); Munich (2005)
By the Numbers
Cause → Event → Consequence
The September 1972 Munich massacre, carried out by the Palestinian militant group Black September, resulted in the deaths of eleven Israeli Olympic team members. Israel attributed responsibility to Black September and elements of the PLO, prompting Prime Minister Golda Meir to authorize a covert retaliatory operation in the autumn of 1972.
Operation Bayonet, also known as Operation Wrath of God, was a Mossad-led covert campaign to assassinate individuals accused of involvement in the Munich massacre. Targeting Black September members and PLO operatives, the operation is believed to have spanned more than two decades, during which Mossad killed several prominent Palestinians.
Although Mossad eliminated a number of high-profile Palestinian figures during the operation, it failed to kill Abu Daoud, the alleged mastermind of the Munich massacre. The operation became one of the most widely discussed examples of state-sponsored targeted assassination and was later depicted in the 1986 television film Sword of Gideon and Steven Spielberg's 2005 film Munich.