The terrorist attack carried out by the Palestinian group Black September, failures in German security and a series of mistakes that ultimately led to a deadly gunfight. Israel responded with a campaign ordered by Prime Minister Golda Meir.
The Munich Olympics became the scene of one of the most shocking terrorist attacks in sporting history on September 5 and 6, 1972.
In ancient Greece, wars between rival city-states were suspended during the Olympic Games. The competitions were considered so sacred that a temporary truce was imposed on fighting. More than two millennia later, however, the modern Olympics were confronted with a conflict that had already been raging for decades.
In Munich, a group of Palestinian militants targeted members of the Israeli Olympic delegation. The attack unfolded in front of the eyes of the world and ended in a massacre that would leave a lasting mark on the Middle East conflict.
The events were brought back into the public consciousness decades later by Steven Spielberg’s 2005 film Munich. The killings shocked international public opinion and, followed by Israel’s forceful response, marked another escalation in the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The rise of Black September
The roots of the attack went back to the Six-Day War of June 1967, when Israel won a rapid military victory over its Arab neighbors.
Israeli forces captured the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria.
The war was a major victory for Israel, but it also gave fresh momentum to the Palestinian national movement. With the Arab states having failed to defeat Israel, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), founded in 1964 and initially controlled by Egypt, increasingly became the center of Palestinian resistance.
Yasser Arafat emerged as the movement’s leading political figure. He had founded the nationalist armed group Fatah in 1959, but the organization faced competition from other Palestinian factions, particularly the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
Palestinian groups increasingly competed to stage spectacular attacks designed to draw international attention. Bombings, aircraft hijackings and cross-border raids became part of the struggle, while Israel responded with military operations against areas from which attacks were launched.
In September 1970, Jordan’s King Hussein moved against PLO militants, who had effectively created a state within a state on Jordanian territory. Palestinian forces suffered heavy losses, and Arafat was forced to relocate his headquarters to Lebanon.
The violent confrontation became known as Black September. The name was later adopted by a special Fatah apparatus involved in carrying out high-profile terrorist operations.
According to various accounts, the organization was established by Salah Khalaf, better known as Abu Iyad, a senior Fatah figure considered more hardline than Arafat. Its stated aim was to strike Israeli targets wherever possible while pressuring Western governments through the threat of further attacks.
The 1972 Munich Olympics
In Munich, this strategy reached a devastating climax.
German authorities had deliberately avoided imposing heavy security measures around the Olympics. They wanted the Games to project an open and welcoming image and to distance the country from the shadow of its Nazi past.
That approach created a major security vulnerability.
In the early hours of September 5, 1972, eight Black September militants managed to enter the Olympic Village and reach the quarters occupied by the Israeli athletes.
Two members of the Israeli delegation attempted to resist the attackers and were killed immediately. One of them, according to evidence that emerged later, was initially wounded before being tortured and mutilated and ultimately killed.
The remaining members of the delegation were taken hostage, setting in motion a crisis that would end with a failed rescue operation, a gunfight and the deaths of the remaining Israeli hostages and a German police officer.
The massacre would have consequences far beyond the Olympic Village. Israel’s response, ordered by Prime Minister Golda Meir, would launch a new and highly controversial phase in the country’s campaign against Palestinian militant groups.
The attack and the massacre
The militants took nine members of the Israeli delegation hostage and demanded the release of around 200 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
The West German government entered into negotiations that lasted for most of the day. Eventually, the authorities agreed to allow the attackers to leave with their hostages aboard two helicopters and fly to an airport near Munich, where they were supposed to board a flight to Cairo.
The plan was actually a trap. German marksmen had been positioned to kill the militants after they landed, allowing the police to free the hostages.
But the operation quickly descended into chaos.
A confused gun battle broke out at around 11 p.m. and continued past midnight. Five of the eight attackers were killed, along with all nine Israeli hostages and one German police officer.
Including the two members of the Israeli delegation who had been killed at the beginning of the attack, the total death toll from the massacre reached 17.
The three surviving Black September militants were arrested, but Germany later released them in exchange for the passengers and crew of a Lufthansa aircraft hijacked by other militants on October 29, 1972.
At the time, several European governments preferred to reach discreet, informal understandings with the PLO in an effort to prevent further violence. Italy, for example, negotiated what became known as the Moro Agreement, named after then-Foreign Minister Aldo Moro. The arrangement was not always respected by all Palestinian factions.
Israel’s response
Israel’s response was very different.
The Israeli Air Force quickly carried out strikes against Palestinian camps in Lebanon and Syria that served as bases for the PLO.
Golda Meir, then prime minister of Israel, also authorized the Mossad, the country’s foreign intelligence service responsible for operations abroad, to eliminate Palestinian militant leaders believed to have been involved in the Munich massacre.
A special unit was established for the task, and a campaign of targeted assassinations began.
The long cycle of attacks, reprisals and retaliation surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict never truly ended, despite the hopes raised by the 1993 Oslo Accords.
The suffering of both peoples continues to this day. In recent years, the conflict has reached unprecedented levels of violence, particularly following the October 7, 2023 attacks and the ensuing war in Gaza.
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