The Mobile Register · Mobile, Alabama · 9 July 1972

CP-1972-012

Palestinian Guerrilla Leader Dies In Blast

Harry Dunphy, Associated Press Writer, Beirut

Transcribed from the clipping

“BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) — The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine accused Israel of assassinating one of its leaders Saturday and vowed to avenge his death with ‘a most ruthless strike.’ Ghassan Kanafani, 36, was killed by an explosion that demolished his sports car after he turned on the ignition outside his suburban Beirut apartment. His niece, Lamiss Nejim, 15, also was killed in the blast. A statement issued by the Marxist-Leninist Front mourned the ‘martydom’ of Kanafani and declared, ‘No matter who did it, the origin is the imperialist-Zionist-reactionary enemy camp’… Kanafani, the front’s ‘information commissar’ or spokesman and member of its Politburo, announced the front’s responsibility for the Tel Aviv airport, massacre May 30, in which three Japanese trained gunmen, by the front, killed 28 persons, and wounded scores more. Guerrillas said Kanafani’s death was a reprisal for the attack because some Western newspapers had described him as its mastermind. Kanafani, editor of the leftist weekly Al Hadaf, was well known in the Middle East as an author of books, short stories and poems, many of them about the plight of the Palestinians. One collection of stories has been translated into Hebew.… The possibility that a group that had split with the front earlier this year was involved was not ruled out. A military demolitoin expert estimated that about 10 pounds of dynamite was wired in the exhaust pipe of the brown Austin 1100 car and went off when Kanafani started the car at 11 a.m. The car hit the overhang of the building under which it was parked and landed 50 feet away, police said. The blast blew in doors and shattered windows in the middle-class neighborhood of Hazmieh, southeast of Beirut. Police said Kanafani returned home after midnight and the device was planted sometime during the night. A high-ranking government security official said ‘suspicious elements’ had been inquiring about various front leaders in recent weeks, but he refused to elaborate… Leila Khaled, the woman hijacker who failed in an attempt at the same time to hijack an Israeli airliner was a close friend of Kanafani. She was reported to be in Berlin.”

Photograph caption

A portrait, captioned simply “KANAFANI”.

Context added by this archive

The ninth American printing of this killing held here, the fullest of the Associated Press versions, and the only one carrying his photograph. It gives both halves of him without deciding between them: the front’s information commissar, who announced its responsibility for the Lod airport attack, and an author of books, short stories and poems, one collection of which had been translated into Hebrew. The paper’s spellings, martydom, demolitoin and Hebew, are kept. Ten pounds of dynamite in the exhaust pipe, planted after he got home past midnight.

Cite this item

"Palestinian Guerrilla Leader Dies In Blast," The Mobile Register, 9 July 1972. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1972-012. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1972-012

Elsewhere in the archive

• Artist Seeking Mideast TogethernessThe Daily Progress · 3 May 1972 · the same year
• Arab Militant Leader Dies In Car ExplosionJacksonville Journal · 8 July 1972 · the same year
• Israel Accused in Assassination BlastThe Flint Journal · 9 July 1972 · the same year